Earth Girl (16 page)

Playdon had been attaching a decontamination hose to a bulky gray tank set against our dome wall, but now he stopped. ‘I really have to ask … Fian, why did you say that?’

‘The dust is metallic and attracted to our impact suits,’ said Fian. ‘You gave us all the safety lectures about magnetic hazards being dangerous because they mess up the low level magnetic field in the impact suit material. My guess is the dust is being attracted to that low level magnetic field, and if it gets inside the suit then it could damage it, make the material trigger unpredictably, or fail to trigger at all.’

‘Very good,’ said Playdon. ‘Even if the metallic dust didn’t actually damage the suit, it would be hard to remove and make it hideously uncomfortable to wear. I don’t want to have to send all our suits off for reconditioning. Krath, what was your reason?’

‘I’ve seen ordinary rubbish heaps with dangerous stuff in them. Those ruins are extra big rubbish heaps, so there could be extra dangerous stuff.’

‘I’d never thought of it quite that way before,’ said Playdon, ‘but your conclusion is correct.’ He turned to me. ‘Jarra?’

‘Dig site rule 1. If you don’t understand what’s happening, be extra careful,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Playdon.

He finished attaching the hose and sprayed everyone, and we all trooped into the dome. The disinfectant smell of the decontaminant haunted us all through lunch and the afternoon lectures, so we picked strongly flavoured food at dinner and drowned out the disinfectant with the odours of spices from five different sectors. I didn’t recognise half of them, including the bright blue sauce that Krath was eagerly shovelling down his throat, but I didn’t risk advertising my ignorance by asking about them.

After dinner, I saw Fian approaching me, so I headed for my room on the pretext of getting a cushion. When I got back to the hall, I saw him sitting by one wall with another Deltan boy, so I went to sit by the opposite wall and chat to Amalie.

‘Dalmora’s amaz,’ she said, nodding at where the Alphan was sitting and softly strumming her guitar.

‘She’s really good,’ I said. ‘Someone tried to teach me to play once. We were on London Fringe, and it rained for three solid days. By the end of it, everyone made me promise never to try and learn to play the guitar ever again. I’m not even remotely musical.’

‘You seem to have spent a lot of time on dig sites,’ said Amalie.

I realized I’d opened my big mouth again, and hastily tried to divert the conversation away from my past. ‘Guitar playing is a tradition on dig sites, like light bulb jokes.’

‘What’s a light bulb joke?’ asked Amalie.

‘A light bulb was part of ancient glows used back in the twentieth century. I think they were some sort of primitive power cell. Anyway, a dig team found an ancient book of jokes about changing light bulbs, and ever since then people on dig sites have made light bulb jokes. Changing a light bulb was apparently very easy to do, and the jokes … Well, it’s easiest to explain by giving an example.’

I paused and thought for a moment. ‘How many Military does it take to change a light bulb? This is where you say that you don’t know, and repeat the question.’

Amalie looked confused. ‘I don’t know. How many Military does it take to change a light bulb?’

‘Under Military regulations section 39, subsection 8.1, one officer, or two cadets in training, should be an adequate personnel allocation to change a light bulb.’

She thought about it for a moment, and then started laughing. Fian had been watching us thoughtfully and now stood up and wandered over.

‘What’s the joke?’ he asked.

I explained the light bulb thing, and repeated the joke. After that, the whole class got interested, and I had to say the whole thing a third time in a louder voice.

‘How many Alphans does it take to change a light bulb?’ asked Dalmora.

We all told her that we didn’t know.

‘Alphans don’t change light bulbs,’ she said. ‘Light bulbs are irreplaceable relics of our cultural history, and Alpha sector is honoured to care for them on behalf of humanity.’

Everyone laughed.

‘How many Betans does it take to change a light bulb?’ asked Lolmack.

We warily admitted that we didn’t know.

‘One to change the light bulb, two to have sex with it, and three to make the vid,’ said Lolmack.

I hadn’t even realized that Playdon was in the room, so I was startled to hear his voice from behind me.

‘How many Gammans does it take to change a light bulb?’

We gave the ritual response.

‘One to change the light bulb, and two to check if being too friendly with it is against the Gamman moral code,’ said Playdon in a pointed voice.

We weren’t too sure whether we should be laughing at that one. Fian helpfully spoke on behalf of Delta sector.

‘How many Deltans does it take to change a light bulb?’

We gave the required response.

‘Ten to research a new improved light bulb and one to change it.’

It was definitely safe to laugh at that, so it got a good audience reaction.

‘How many Epsilons does it take to change a light bulb?’ asked Amalie.

Joth decided to speed things up. ‘We don’t know,’ he yelled solo.

‘Planets in Epsilon sector don’t have light bulbs yet, but they’re in the five-year development plan,’ she said, with a perfectly serious face that got us all laughing helplessly.

I thought we’d finished then but Krath decided to take a hand.

‘How many apes does it take to change a light bulb?’

I froze and sat silently cursing the exo. Around me, I could hear several people calling out that they didn’t know. Nuke Krath, and nuke the rest of them as well. What were they going to say now? I’d heard plenty of ape jokes on the sector vid channels, and some of them were really …

‘If you start giving apes light bulbs,’ said Krath, ‘they’ll want the vote next.’

It could have been much worse, the joke wasn’t about how ugly apes were, or how they smelled bad, but I’d no idea what was coming next. If this was a vid, then I’d turn it off and walk away, but it wasn’t. This was happening right here in front of me, and these were my classmates not strangers.

There seemed to be quite a few people laughing. I bent over, pretending I had a problem with my shoe, so I could hide my face and avoid seeing theirs while I tried to think what to do. This was my moment. I could keep up my pretence of being JMK and make a calmly reasoned argument on behalf of the Handicapped, or I could openly tell the class what I was and scream abuse at them just the way that I’d planned.

‘Don’t they get to vote?’ asked Joth. ‘I know every planet has its own system, and voting age can vary between 16 and 25, but …’

‘Of course apes don’t vote,’ said Krath. ‘Why would Earth need a representative in Parliament of Planets, let alone Sector High Congress?’

‘To take care of their interests,’ said Joth.

‘Hospital Earth does all that,’ said Krath. ‘It’s not as if apes are capable of understanding sector politics, and they’re perfectly well cared for. My dad says the funding for Hospital Earth is ridiculously generous. Apes should be adequately housed and fed, but treating them like real humans is …’

I still hadn’t worked out what I was going to say, but I couldn’t sit here silently listening to Krath dismiss me as not really human. I raised my head, and opened my mouth, but the cool, sarcastic voice of Lolmack cut in ahead of me.

‘The Handicapped are legally human,’ he said, ‘but the rules on that certainly need to be tightened up. It’s shocking what qualifies as human. Krath does, for example, and you only need to look at him to know he’s really a Cassandrian skunk that’s been trained to walk on two legs.’

‘What?’ Krath gazed at Lolmack in shock. ‘Why you nuking Betan, I’ll …’

He scrambled to his feet and raised his fists to attack. I saw Lolmack stand up as well, shed his usual carefully negligent pose, and suddenly appear taller and far more dangerous as he laughed at Krath.

‘Am I supposed to be scared of you, infant?’

Playdon was suddenly standing between the pair of them. ‘Stop this, both of you!’

Krath hesitated for a second before letting his hands drop. ‘But he called me a …’

‘You were making jokes about who was and wasn’t human,’ said Lolmack, with an expression of wide eyed innocence, ‘and I just joined in. Don’t you have a sense of humour, Krath?’

Krath turned to Playdon. ‘Are you going to let him get away with that?’

Playdon had an angry line to his mouth as he looked back at him. ‘I have a choice here. I can accept this as one of the genuine misunderstandings that arise between students raised in different cultures, or I can treat it as a deliberate insult from Lolmack and an attempted physical attack by you. The second option means you both get official conduct warnings. Which would you prefer, Krath?’

Krath opened his mouth, shut it again, and stood there in frustrated silence. Playdon watched him for a few seconds, before nodding and speaking again.

‘In that case, I’ll just say that everyone should be careful what jokes they make, and that particularly includes jokes about the Handicapped.’

I’d been sitting there like an idiot, feeling embarrassingly relieved that Lolmack had chosen this particular moment to cause trouble again, but now I had a flash of panic. Was Playdon going to tell them …?

‘You should remember we’re all guests of the Handicapped while we’re on this dig site and this planet,’ he continued. ‘Now I suggest Lolmack and Krath should both go to their rooms.’

Lolmack shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

He strolled out of the hall, and Krath followed him a moment later, his face and body language reminding me of a sulking toddler. Playdon went after them, presumably to make sure they didn’t have a fight in the corridor, and there was an awkward silence before Dalmora stood up.

‘Lecturer Playdon is right. We are guests here on Earth and it’s discourteous to mock our hosts.’ She paused. ‘It’s late, so I’m going to bed now.’

She headed for the door, and Lolia went after her, then a procession of students that included Amalie and Fian. A few of the Gammans clustered together in a tight knit group, talking in words that were loud enough for me to hear but didn’t make any sense. They had to be talking in Gamman dialect rather than Language.

I forced myself to stand up, escaped from the hall, ignored an attempt at conversation from Amalie, and went straight to the refuge of my room.

I lay awake in bed for long hours that night, caught up in burning fury and an odd sense of shame. Why hadn’t I screamed my anger at Krath instead of sitting there, like a good little ape, meekly accepting whatever the superior humans chose to say about me? Of course, I hadn’t been expecting the conversation. If I’d had time to think, then I could have said …

I spent a long time pointlessly trying to work out what I should have said and when, and failing. I was feeling confused. I’d always assumed all exos despised apes, and hated them indiscriminately for it. Now Lolmack had proved he was different, and Dalmora had made her little protest, and a lot of the class had walked out of the door after her.

It was hard to judge Playdon’s position on this. He’d made that speech about the Handicapped, but he was our lecturer and his actions could have been forced on him by the Gamman moral code. I remembered the Cassandra 2 rescue. When someone had asked if the apes of Earth 19 would be any help, Playdon had replied with a savage note in his voice. I didn’t know if his anger was at the question, or at the fact he needed the help of apes.

I rubbed my forehead, as if the physical action could somehow help me think straight. Was I in the right or the wrong here? Krath had said some rude things about apes, but I’d only heard him because I’d deliberately come here and told the class a whole lot of cold blooded lies. I’d treated them badly, and some of those people deserved it, but some didn’t.

I felt … I didn’t know how I felt. I’ve always been good at physical things, and bad at dealing with emotions, and it hurt to think about this stuff. This wasn’t just about what the norms thought of apes, it was also about how I thought about myself, and …

I dragged myself out of bed in the morning, ate breakfast with an oddly subdued and silent class, and forced myself into my impact suit and outside with the others. It was when we reached our work site, that Playdon took my tag leader spot away.

I couldn’t believe it. I was just looking at the rubble, assessing the hazards, when Playdon told me to take over Amalie’s heavy lift sled, gave her my tag gun and hover belt, and started instructing her in how to use them. He’d replaced me without a word of warning or explanation. I stood there watching them for one shocked moment, and then hurried over to take my place on the heavy lift sled. I wasn’t in a rush to do what I was told, but I sure as chaos didn’t want to stand around and give anyone the chance to talk to me.

Once I was safely alone on the sled, the pain and hurt hit me like a falling tower. Why had Playdon done this? I’d learned to respect the man, and it felt like he’d stabbed me in the back. I’d thought I was on good terms with him now. I knew he still didn’t understand what an ape girl was doing on his course, but I’d got the idea he trusted me to have decent reasons. I’d actually felt a bit ashamed about that, but now …

I hadn’t done anything stupid on the dig site, so Playdon had to be punishing me for last night. Nuke that for justice! I might have been the one to start the light bulb jokes, but I was the victim, not the criminal here. I’d been a great tag leader, helped train the rest of the class to use impact suits, done every single thing Playdon asked of me, even risked my life for Cassandra 2, but none of that mattered. Nothing could change the fact I was an ape, so he’d used me to help train the class and now he was dumping me. I was getting shuffled away from key spot and on to a heavy lift sled. In a few days, or weeks, I’d probably be shuffled again, to get me away from team 1 entirely.

I was white hot with anger now, as I sat there watching Amalie shooting tags at rocks. This was completely unfair and I wasn’t going to meekly accept it. I’d come on this class to make a point. I’d planned to fool the exos, scream abuse at them, and walk away. It was time to do exactly that, but I had enough control left to realize I’d make a complete nardle of myself if I did it here in the middle of a dig site. How would I get out of here afterwards? Walking all the way back to the dome on the uneven clearway surface would be killingly hard work in an impact suit, and the class would probably overtake me on the way past, sitting on their sleds and jeering at the ape trudging behind them.