Earth 2788 (8 page)

“I know,” said
the boy. “I was only …”

“Keep your eyes
away from her!” said the woman. “You know what Betans are like, always trying
to seduce people.”

I blinked. The
woman was presumably the boy’s mother. Did she think I was deaf, did she think
that Betans didn’t understand the official common tongue of humanity, or did
her home sector not believe in basic courtesy?

I opened my
mouth to politely point out that the style of toga I wore was that of a married
woman, which meant I had no desire to seduce anyone outside my marriage, but
the woman gave a sniff of disgust that was pointedly aimed in my direction.

Now I finally
realized that the woman had deliberately swapped from her home sector dialect
to speaking Language because she wanted me to understand what she was saying. She
wanted me to feel ashamed of being Betan. Well, I wasn’t ashamed. I might have
issues with Lolek’s bullying rule over our clan, I might have chosen to leave
Beta sector, but I was still proud of its culture and history.

The woman hadn’t
made me feel ashamed, but she had made me feel angry! Since this rude,
narrow-minded and stupid outlander insisted on treating me like a sex-mad
predator pursuing her son, I’d do exactly what she deserved and act like one!

I gave the boy a
deeply suggestive smile. “Hello, gorgeous boy.”

He responded
with a look of temptation mixed with terror. “Hello.”

His mother gave
us a single horrified glance, grabbed the boy’s arm again, and physically
dragged him off to the back of the queue.

I laughed and
faced forward again. The flashing sign changed to say the block portal to Earth
Europe was now open, and the queue started moving. I saw the travellers
immediately ahead of me now were a couple with a little girl, and recognized
them as the same family I’d met in the queue for Cross-sector Gate 4. They all
looked very happy, and I felt it was the best possible omen for the future.

I followed them
through the portal to start my new life on Earth.

Asgard, Gamma Sector, June 2788.

I was humming to myself as I drove
my heavy lift sled across the scrap yard, manoeuvred it into position, locked
the glowing beam on to the twisted wreckage of an old digging machine, and
lifted it upwards to reveal my precious hoard of …

My hum abruptly
stopped. “What the chaos?”

I stared in outrage
at the blank area of ground. There should have been seventy-nine crushed cubes
of metal there. I’d spent over two weeks collecting them, ready to execute my
grand plan this afternoon while my dad was visiting friends. The idea was to
carefully position the cubes in front of our house, so when he came home he’d
find them spelling out the words “Nuke off!”, but the whole lot had gone.

I slapped the
control to cut the lift beam. The digging machine dropped back to the ground,
and I waited a moment or two for it to stop rocking from side to side, then
jumped down from my sled and started roaming round the scrap yard. Perhaps my
stash of cubes had been moved behind the heap of old transport sleds in the
corner, or …

But no. My metal
cubes weren’t anywhere to be seen. I gave up, tapped at my lookup to access the
yard sales system, and saw the hideous truth. My dad had sold every single one
of my metal cubes this morning!

I sat down on
the carcass of a dead food dispenser and sighed. This was just typical of my life.
I never had any fun at all. Other 17-year-old boys went to school, made
friends, met girls, while I was stuck working on my dad’s scrap yard all day.

Fifteen months
ago, leaving school had seemed a great idea. I’d lived on nine different
planets before my dad and I moved to Asgard when I was 14. When Dad decided to
settle down and start a refuse collection and recycling business, I’d thought
I’d finally be at a school long enough to make proper friends, but all the
other kids had known each other for years and I didn’t fit in. When they found
out my dad collected all the school rubbish, things got really bad. Everyone
kept making fun of me, calling me scrap boy and telling me to empty the rubbish
bins. I complained to a teacher about it, but the other kids all ganged up on
me, denying saying anything at all, so …

Well, when Dad
said that I could legally leave school at 16 to start an apprenticeship with
his business, I’d grabbed at the chance. Now I was starting to think I’d made a
big mistake. Nobody called me names any more, but that was because I never saw
anyone. Dad had made the apprenticeship sound really exciting. I’d expected to
be making deals, buying and selling stuff, but he did all that himself. I just
used heavy lift and transport sleds to shift junk round the scrap yard, or to
dump rubbish through the recycling machines. If Dad would …

My lookup played
a couple of warning notes, and I braced myself for the sickening sound of the
male singer that would come next. I’d found this lookup in a rubbish delivery a
few days ago, one of the latest models in apparently perfect condition. I’d
happily transferred all my personal stuff to it yesterday, before discovering
exactly why its previous owner had thrown it away. It was suffering some sort
of data corruption, so once any options were set you could never change them. That
meant I couldn’t change the call alert from Zen Arrath singing about his
eternal devotion to a girl called Diamond. I couldn’t change the default screen
display from a barely legal image of a semi-clad Zen Arrath. I couldn’t even stop
getting alerts from the Zen Arrath fan club every time the man sneezed.

The voice of Zen
Arrath started singing. “My love for you is …”

I checked the
lookup, and saw it wasn’t a recorded message from the Zen Arrath fan club this
time, but an incoming call from my dad. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I had
to accept the call to shut up Zen Arrath.

“Krath, I’m
coming home,” said my dad. “Meet me at the house right away!”

“What? Why?”

He lowered his
voice to speak in a dramatic whisper. “We’re making a special broadcast. The
underground network has just sent out a priority relay alert!”

“Amaz!” I jumped
to my feet. “What are we relaying?”

“It’s not safe
to discuss this on the call system,” said my dad. “We have to get back to the
house.”

He ended the
call, and I started jogging across the scrap yard to the side gate. As I
reached it, I saw a huge, emerald green butterfly was flapping its way along
the fence towards me. I stopped and watched warily as the evil thing flew past
me.

I hated Asgard
butterflies. On my first day on this world, literally three hours after walking
through an interstellar portal and arriving in Asgard Off-world, I’d seen a
crimson and gold butterfly. I’d thought it was totally amaz, reached out to
touch it, and the nuking thing bit me! Within minutes, my whole hand swelled up
and went bright red. I ended up in a medical centre, with some officious doctor
treating me for an allergic reaction while lecturing me on the stupidity of not
reading the safety warnings when I arrived on a new planet. Given I’d lived on
nine other worlds with perfectly safe butterflies, I felt he was being unfair,
but I’d kept well clear of butterflies ever since.

I saw my dad
heading for the house. The butterfly was at a safe distance now, so I went
through the gate and hurried to join him at the front door. We went inside, and
started our standard lock-down procedure ready for the broadcast. Secure the
door. Set the windows to black-out mode. Activate all the proximity alarms.

Finally, we
dragged the huge couch in the living room to one side, opened the trap door,
and went down to the secret room under the floor. Dad turned on the glows, and
hurried over to the bank of equipment by the side wall, throwing the master
switch to turn everything on.

“So what’s
happening?” I asked.

“No time to
explain,” said my dad. “We’ve got to spread the news fast before the Military
throw a security crackdown over the whole thing. You’ll hear all the details
when I’m making the broadcast.”

“But you said
I
could do the next broadcast!”

“You can’t do
this one because it’s a priority relay alert. You’ll have to do the next one
instead.”

I glared at him.
“You’re always doing this. You keep saying I can do a broadcast, but it never
happens.”

“I promise
faithfully you’ll make the next broadcast. Now get the vid bees out.”

“You promised
faithfully last time!” I got the small spherical vid bees out of their case,
and activated them. “You promised the time before that as well. It’s always the
same. You make the announcement. I get stuck with controlling the vid bees.”

“This isn’t
about personal glory,” said my dad. “This is about spreading the truth. Telling
humanity the things the big newzie channels are scared to say. Reporting the
real stories behind all the lies of Parliament of Planets and the Military.”

I sent the vid
bees floating through the air to the far end of the room, and started them
recording. “I don’t see why I can’t be the one spreading the truth for once.”

Dad put on his
mask, and took up his position in front of the big “
Truth Against Oppression
”
sign painted on the wall. Personally, I thought it was a boring name for a
subversive news channel. All the other ten news channels in our underground
network had more exciting names than us, but Dad never listened to my
suggestions for a new name. He never let me do a broadcast. He never …

“Wake up, Krath,”
said my dad. “Can’t you see I’m ready to broadcast?”

I sighed and
went over to the equipment bank. “Broadcast in three, two, one …” I hit the red
button.

“This is
Truth
Against Oppression
,” said my dad. “The channel that brings you the real
truth behind the lying official propaganda. This is a special broadcast in
addition to our regular weekly news update. Remember to follow our channel to
make sure you never miss these vital extra broadcasts with emergency breaking
news.”

I frowned. Only
the viewers who already followed our channel would be seeing this, so reminding
them to follow us was a bit silly.

“Today we’re
relaying an emergency news story from an underground news channel in Delta
sector,” said my dad. “They’re reporting a Military failure that’s been covered
up for three decades. One of the worlds in Epsilon sector was cleared as safe
by Planet First teams, and moved into Colony Ten phase. A thousand trusting
colonists went there only to find that every one of their babies was born
Handicapped, with an immune system that couldn’t survive on any world but Earth.”

I gaped at him
in shock. I could see why the underground network had called for a priority
relay alert on this story. The Military had really messed up. They’d be eager
to throw a news blackout on this before the word spread.

“Worse still,”
continued my dad, “the Military still refused to admit their failure. In an act
of criminal irresponsibility, they allowed the planet Miranda to continue and
be opened for full colonization.”

I wasn’t just
shocked now, I was utterly grazzed. This story was huge!

My dad
flourished an arm dramatically. “The Military have kept their secret for three
decades now. For three decades, every baby born on Miranda has had to be
portalled to Earth to save its life. For three decades, the parents of Miranda
have wept for their lost children. For three decades, the Military have forced
these people to suffer in silence, and …”

There was a
sudden shrieking sound. I stared up at the ceiling in bewilderment, then
realized one of the proximity alarms was going off. My dad broke off his
sentence, and slammed his hand on the black button that cut the alarm siren. He
started speaking again in an even more dramatic voice.

“This is
Truth
against Oppression
. We are being raided! We are being raided! Going silent
running now!”

I was so busy
staring at Dad, that I didn’t remember to hit the red button to cut the
broadcast until he pointed at it. We practiced raid response drill every month,
so I automatically followed the routine after that, shutting down the vid bees
and all the electrical equipment. My dad was opening the hidden door to the
reinforced panic room now, waving at me to join him, so I ran across and we
both squeezed inside.

It was when Dad
was closing the door behind us, that his lookup bleeped the house interior
alarm signal. I’d been counting on this being a false alarm until then, but if
the interior alarm was going off then someone was inside our house. This was
really happening. Armed Military were searching our house. I was either going
to be shot, or locked up in some Military prison for the rest of my life.

Nuke this! My
dad might be happy to die to spread the truth, but I wasn’t!

My dad shut the
door, so we were in total darkness. For a couple of minutes, there was just the
sound of our breathing, and then there was another sequence of bleeps from my
dad’s lookup. I bit my lip. That was the alarm warning us that someone had
opened the trapdoor. The Military were in the secret broadcast room now, so
there was only the panic room door between us and them.

This was so
unfair. I was going to die, and I hadn’t even got my chance at doing the broadcast!

There was
silence for about five more minutes, and then Zen Arrath started singing from
my lookup. I jumped nervously, banged my head on the low ceiling, and tapped
frantically at my lookup. In my haste to shut up Zen Arrath, I accidentally
answered the call, and a grim female voice spoke.

“Krath, I assume
you’re inside that absurd panic room with your father. He’s blocking my calls,
so can you tell him there’s no point in hiding from me. I’m right outside the
door, and I intend to stay here until he comes out and talks to me!”

I wasn’t sure if
I was relieved or even more scared than before. It wasn’t armed Military in our
broadcast room. It was my Aunt Galina!

My dad groaned,
squeezed past me to the door, and opened it. Aunt Galina watched us with that
frosty look of hers as we scrambled out into the broadcast room. Dad
straightened his clothes, and gave her an angry look.

“Why did you
break into my house, and how did you get past the security defences?”

“It’s not your
house,” said Aunt Galina, “it’s mine, and I used my front door security master
code to get in.”

“It may be
technically your house,” said Dad, “but I’m renting it from you. I have a legal
right to privacy. You’ve no business marching in here without my permission!”

Aunt Galina gave
him a withering look. “You would have a legal right to privacy if you actually
paid me the rent you owe, which you don’t. You prefer to spend your money
making illegal alterations to my property for your ridiculous vid channel,
Truth
Against Depression
.”

“It’s not
Truth
Against Depression
, it’s
Truth Against Oppression
,” said Dad, “and
it’s not ridiculous. We’re performing an essential public service, telling
people the truth behind all the official lies. You’ve interrupted a critically
important broadcast by marching in here. We must tell the whole of humanity
about Miranda!”

“Who is Miranda?”
asked Aunt Galina.

“Miranda isn’t a
person,” said Dad. “It’s a planet in Epsilon sector. The Military messed up
choosing it as a colony world. There aren’t any children there, because every
baby is born a throwback ape!”

Aunt Galina
looked even more disapproving. “I dislike hearing the Handicapped described in such
disrespectful terms. They’ve simply been born with a faulty immune system.”

“It makes no
difference what we call them,” said Dad. “They aren’t going to hear us because
they can’t leave Earth. Anyway, it’s not as if they’re really human.”