Earth Girl (37 page)

We drove along the Loop for a few minutes, and then turned north through the ruins, following a path marked by twin lines of glows. I could see the crash site ahead, marked by the thick pall of dust still hanging in the air. The rest of the ruins had their white blanket of snow, but here it had melted or been buried in falling rubble. We reached the end of the marked path, and Rono led our group of sleds around a curve marked by occasional single glows until we parked by one.

‘This glow marks our position at two o’clock,’ said Rono. ‘There’s a vid bee hovering above each glow, recording images and transmitting them so the Site Leader can view the site from any of the team positions.’

I looked across the crash site, counting the other eleven glows that marked the circle of the huge clock face. Another single glow marked the centre of the circle. After a few minutes we heard Pereth speaking on the broadcast channel.

‘This is Site Leader. Set up boundary glows in red, and start with ten markers per clock point please. As you can all see, we have a huge area to cover. Solar 5 have to take their shields down to use their escape hatches, but they can’t do that until we shift the rubble off the top of the ship, and they’re buried pretty deeply. To prevent dangerous landslides, we’re aiming to dig out a gently sloping crater within our clock face that will be deep enough at the centre to uncover the whole top of the ship.’

Rono unpacked two red glows, and a set of markers from one of the sensor sleds. He set up one of the glows on each side of us, showing the boundary points between us and the neighbouring teams at one o’clock and three o’clock, and then placed evenly spaced numbered markers along our section of the circle.

‘This is like a cake?’ Fian asked me. ‘We have to dig out the slice of the cake between the red glows?’

I nodded. ‘I think so. We dig out one twelfth of the cake.’

The Site Leader was talking again. ‘We’ve already encountered problems because the solar storm is causing lift beams to flux erratically. That means a lot of rocks will get dropped by the lift sleds, and there’ll also be problems with tag support lifelines. Everyone on tag support, remember when you pull your tag leader out of trouble, keep them quite low in case the beam drops them. I’ve had to rethink plans a little, to try and keep everyone working as much as possible while still keeping risks to a minimum. Normally we double team by running two independent teams near to each other, but we’re going to try something a little different today.’

He paused. ‘All teams call in when you’re positioned and markers are set.’ The various teams around the clock face called in that they were ready, and Pereth continued. ‘Tag support sleds for your first and second teams move to markers one and two respectively. Team leader and sensor sled for first team will be working with the tagging crews. Everyone else is the lift crew and should wait at your clock positions.’

‘I’ve no idea how this is going to work,’ said Rono on the team circuit, ‘but I’m betting Pereth knows what he’s doing.’

Fian drove our tag support sled round to marker two. The other tag support sled was a short distance away at marker one.

‘That’s looking good,’ said Pereth. ‘Our sensor net is up, but people on sensors will already see that interference from the solar storm will be making their job really hard. Team leaders please look for dangers visually as well. At least the aurora is helping us there by turning night into day. Tag leaders should tag rocks working along the line between you and the centre glow. You’ll need to mark smaller rubble than usual because we’re going to have to load everything into dumper sleds and shift it away from our dig area. Contact me with any questions, otherwise we’re ready to start.’

‘This seems complicated,’ said Fian on the team circuit.

‘It’s going to be very complicated,’ said Rono, ‘but only our Site Leader needs to understand the whole plan. The rest of us just trust him and follow directions.’

I tagged rocks, while nervously aware the rubble beneath me wasn’t just unstable, but still actively moving in places as it settled under its own weight. Visibility was difficult too, with the weird coloured light from the aurora, and the fog of fine dust in the air. I was deeply thankful for the impact suit air system, which saved me from having to breathe the filthy stuff.

I was a fair distance into the circle when Pereth started talking again. ‘Tag leaders return to your tag support sleds please. When they’re back, I want the tagging crews to shift round the circle to markers five and six and start work there.’

I headed back to the tag support sled, and Fian drove it round to marker six.

Pereth was giving instructions again. ‘Everyone else is lift crew, and should go to markers one and two to shift tagged rubble. There’ll be a dumper sled either there already or arriving. Only lift rubble when the dumper sled driver is safely clear of the site on the nearest sensor sled. I don’t want people getting rocks dropped on their heads.’

That lot of instructions didn’t really concern me and Fian. For us, it just meant that the rubble I’d tagged was now being shifted, and I was working at a safe distance from any falling rocks. I concentrated on my tagging, moved position when ordered, and let our Site Leader worry about who he was shuffling to where and why.

We shifted to and fro sideways several times, and I suddenly realized this was reminding me of something. When I was a kid of about 7 years old, I was in Home with Issette, and Keon, and everyone, and the staff used to get us doing dancing. We’d all be in a circle, holding hands, and one of the staff would call out the steps to us. Two steps left, then two steps right.

This was similar in a crazy sort of way. The Site Leader was calling out the steps, and the circle of tag crews and lift crews danced to his bidding. After a while, we started to learn the dance, and could guess where he would move us next. When he had us all move in towards the centre glow, mark out another smaller circle and work there a little before moving us back out again, I nearly laughed. That was so like the dances in Home as well. Boys step in and out. Girls step in and out.

The dance was working. We were starting to dig out our crater, moving in and out so that we didn’t have any dangerously high banks of rubble. There were problems of course. At any point in the dance, some tag team would be struggling with a huge boulder or girder that sprawled across the areas of two or even three markers.

We had our turn at that of course. ‘We’ll have to cut that up into small pieces to get them on a dumper truck,’ said Rono, as I approached a vast length of diamene. ‘Our two tag leaders had better work together. Keren get a laser gun and do the cutting. Jarra follow him along and tag please.’

I wasn’t surprised Rono preferred the experienced Keren to be handling the laser gun, rather than handing it to a novice when the solar storm was causing random effects on equipment. I might be a crazy ape, but I preferred things that way too.

At one point, our team reached a section of wall that had stubbornly clung to life and was still dangerously high. Rono called in the problem. Pereth took a look using the vid bees that monitored the dig, and then came round in his red Site Leader sled to take a look in person. The entire dance was halted, the teams pulled back, Solar 5 warned to brace themselves, and we blew up the wall with charges.

Then it was back to the dance, but others had their share of incidents too. There was a sudden cave-in, which briefly buried two tag leaders over near eight o’clock on the circle. A hazardous power storage unit was spotted and had to be dealt with. An old underground cellar actually had to be filled with rubble because it was dangerously deeper than we wanted at that point in our crater. An over eager dumper sled driver managed to get hit by a jagged piece of metal sufficiently hard to damage his impact suit and get him ferried off back to the base camp for medical checks. All of these things called for the attention of our Site Leader, and I wondered how Pereth could cope with it all.

I’d totally lost track of time in the weird cross between night and day, when our Site Leader stopped the dance. I know the aurora colours had shifted from green to pink, and Rono had offered stims to anyone on our team who needed them. The sensor sled operators accepted, exhausted by the strain of trying to distinguish real danger warnings from the crazy images caused by interference. The rest of us were buoyed up by the adrenaline of the situation and didn’t need meds.

‘This is Site Leader. We’re going to mark out a third, even smaller circle, and work directly over the ship for a while. Solar 5, please let us know immediately if you have any shield issues, because our tag leaders will be working directly above you. We’ll only have space for half the teams to work safely, so teams at two, four, six, eight, ten, and twelve o’clock go back to the base camp for an hour break. Leave your working sleds where they are, because I’ve got transport sleds arranged to ferry you to base camp and back. Everyone else, I’m afraid your rest break is an hour and a half away.’

A transport sled pulled up at the two o’clock marker and we piled aboard. ‘Welcome aboard the Achilles 1 ferry service,’ said the cheerful driver. ‘We deliver you to the door of your luxury dome accommodation, where you’ll find food, drinks, blankets, sleep sacks and superior individual washing facilities awaiting you.’

We were exhausted, but we managed a laugh anyway.

‘What are the superior individual washing facilities?’ asked Rono.

‘Well,’ our driver admitted, ‘they’re just bowls of water, but we did our best.’

Achilles 1 had indeed done their best. We were delivered to the door of a dome that was now labelled ‘Rest Room Two o’clock’, and staggered inside to find the heating panels on maximum, sleep sacks and blankets laid out, a makeshift table of upturned crates loaded with food and drinks, and the promised bowls of water.

‘I love Achilles 1,’ said Rono, with deep feeling.

There was a chorus of agreement.

We all stripped off our impact suits, washed, and ate and drank like the starving people we were. Then we stretched out on sleep sacks. After being confined in a heavy impact suit for hour upon hour, this was blizz, complete and utter blizz.

It was ten minutes before I realized I’d forgotten to be embarrassed about being half-naked among strangers. I was just too tired to care. Besides, Fian was lying on the sleep sack next to mine, but the Cassandra 2 team were right over the other side of the dome, ostentatiously not looking in our direction. We were a newly Twoing couple, so they were giving us as much privacy as they could.

Fian rolled on his side to look at me. ‘So,’ he said, ‘we should discuss plans.’

I whimpered. ‘I’m exhausted. I’ve been tagging rocks, while you just had to sit on a sled.’

‘True. I just had to sit on a sled, and tensely wait to yank you out of trouble, while knowing that the solar storm could mean the sensors missed major hazards, or my tag support beam failed at the crucial moment.’

‘Eleven times, thank you.’ I said, wearily.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘You yanked me out of trouble eleven times, including two major landslides and a falling girder that I hadn’t even seen coming. Thank you. Now let me scream quietly in peace.’

‘I want to discuss things now. I’m in a better physical state than you are, so this is my best chance to talk you into submission.’

I sighed. I’d been trying to blot out the personal nightmare and concentrate on doing my job, but now I forced my fuzzy brain to think. ‘The plan is I leave.’

‘Not an option. We entered into a Twoing contract. We have a commitment to try and make this relationship work.’

‘You didn’t know I was Handicapped. I’d lied to you, so you’ve no obligation to honour that commitment.’

Incredibly, the mad norm grinned at me. ‘No I don’t, but you do. I didn’t lie to you about anything, so you’ve got no excuse to walk out on me. I’ve decided to hold you to your contract. You signed up with me for three months and you’re staying with me for them.’

I sat up and stared at him. ‘You don’t want to Two with an ape. You said so. Are you planning some sort of revenge?’

Fian laughed. ‘I’m not the revenge type, and as for comments about apes … You can’t blame me for being angry after all the lies you told me. You lied, I called you an ape, and we’re both sorry. Now, let’s move on and work out how to fix things.’

‘The only thing I can do is leave.’

‘I’ve said that I refuse to let you,’ said Fian, happily, ‘and I mean it. I have legal rights here. I might have grounds to terminate our Twoing contract, but you don’t. I didn’t get you to agree to the contract under false pretences. I haven’t walked out. I haven’t been violent. I didn’t exactly force my attentions on you earlier today. I might have called you an ape once in the heat of the moment, but you can’t really claim that was unreasonable behaviour given the circumstances.’

I was grazzed. ‘You’re threatening to go legal? No one goes legal over a Twoing contract!’

‘Watch me do it,’ said Fian. ‘If you don’t already know how stubborn I can be, then you’ll soon find out. I have rights and I will enforce them. I can demand that we both attend a relationship course including psychological counselling.’

‘That’s evil! I told you I hate psychologists.’

‘At the risk of being thrown across this dome, I must say that I think recent events indicate a bit of time with a psychologist might help. However, I’ll let you off legal action and psychologists, if you agree to carry on with our relationship.’

‘You’re serious? I’m an ape girl!’

Fian frowned. ‘Don’t call yourself that! You’re as human as I am. You’re just … an Earth girl. And yes, I’m perfectly serious. I was furious that you’d lied to me, Jarra. Now I understand you didn’t let us get close to each other until you were in shock after your parents’ death and living in your dream world, and that makes a big difference. The lies you told before that … Well, I could wind myself up to be angry about those again, tell you to get the chaos out of my life, and you’d go off and martyr yourself taking some other course, but would that make either of us happy?’