Earth Star (28 page)

I put the cube in the corner of the room and turned it on. Coloured lights weaved and shimmered above it, then suddenly fused together for a moment to form a bird with outstretched wings. The grim room was transformed into a place of warmth and colour.

Fian pulled the curtain back into place behind us. ‘I wonder how the designers intended to use this area. It certainly doesn’t look like it could be anyone’s home.’

I sat on my sleep sack and watched the light sculpture. ‘This was supposed to be a self-contained arcology. As well as housing for a billion people, there would be offices, schools, hospitals, hundreds of different things.’

‘If the Eden Dig Site teams get this much space, the size of Ark must be incredible. How in chaos did they manage to carve out all these caverns?’

‘University Earth Australia thinks they used two portals, linked in tandem. The first one never established properly, just pulsed to cut the rock into sections. The second one followed behind, portalling the chunks of rock through a relay system to form the Atlantis reef. They’d literally drive these things through solid granite to make the caverns, and follow behind doing a little tidying up with lasers.’

‘Amaz,’ said Fian. ‘I suppose that’s why the doorways are so large.’

Playdon’s voice called from outside. ‘Jarra! Fian! Dig Site Command called to say Cassandra 2 are on their way up.’

We headed out to join the others, and after a couple of minutes a group of ten people entered the room. I saw Rono Kipkibor still had that instantly noticeable scar on his dark forehead, and wondered why he kept it. Every time he had a medical check, he must have to fight to stop doctors treating it.

Rono stopped abruptly as he saw Playdon grinning at him. ‘Playdon! Ellen didn’t tell me …’ Rono broke off as he saw me. ‘Oh no, it’s Jarra Tell Morrath! Are we deep enough underground to be safe from crashing spacecraft?’

I giggled. ‘It wasn’t my fault that Solar 5 crashed, Rono.’

‘It wasn’t your fault it crashed, Jarra, but it was your fault it chose to crash on New York Dig Site.’ He paused. ‘Why are you calling me Rono this time, instead of sir?’

‘During the solar super storm, Lecturer Playdon was away on Asgard. This time, he isn’t.’

‘Very true.’ Rono patted Playdon on the back. ‘Congratulations, Playdon, you’re in charge of Jarra. Any crashing spaceships are your problem, not mine. Now, I’d better make some introductions. Playdon knows everyone already. Jarra and Fian met everyone during the super storm, except for Stephan and Katt who were still in hospital.’

There was a flurry of name listing on both sides, and Stephan stepped forward. ‘This is my first chance to thank you all for rescuing us at the beginning of the year. That was impressive work.’

He solemnly shook hands with everyone on our team, before fading into the background and rejoining his wife. I looked after him in bewilderment. This quiet, retiring man was a tag leader? It seemed out of character.

‘Now, the big question …’ Rono looked at Playdon. ‘I’ve got the guitars. Stephan has his keyboard. Did you bring the drums?’

There was a loud groan from Keren, the other tag leader for Cassandra 2. ‘Please, Playdon, say you didn’t.’

‘I did,’ Playdon said, ‘but we’ve plenty of time for that later. I’d like to check what’s happening back in the hall.’

The Cassandra 2 team picked rooms, and Dalmora unpacked and activated some vid bees, then we all headed back to the huge cavern below. Things were getting busy there now, with a stream of teams arriving through the portal and queuing at the Dig Site Command desk. A crowd had gathered at the opposite end of the hall from the portal, where a large section of wall had been painted white and was being used to display the Earth Rolling News channel. We went to join them.

‘… broadcasting to you from our evacuation centre in Ark,’ said the hugely magnified presenter. ‘Traffic volumes are approaching maximum. Earth America North is experiencing minor portal delays of about three minutes. The congestion in Earth Asia Off-world has now cleared. Stay with Earth Rolling News for regular portal traffic reports.’

The display suddenly changed to split screen. The left half of the screen still showed the man’s face, while the right half was black except for two glowing numbers in different colours. I was trying to work out what they were when the presenter saved me the trouble.

‘There is an estimated seven hours and fifty-three minutes before the portal network goes into lockdown. The Military request everyone enters Ark as soon as possible, and well before the final hour. Ark evacuation status is now 5 per cent complete. You are reminded that Ark is in Earth Australia time zone, but lighting in main areas will remain at daytime levels throughout the storm.’

The time to portal lockdown was glowing red and steadily ticking down, second by second. Ark evacuation status was in green, and suddenly moved from 5 to 6 per cent.

Rono turned and shouted across the room. ‘Dig Site Command, are we staying on Earth Africa time?’

There was a short conference at the Dig Site Command desk, after which Ellen spoke into a microphone and her voice echoed around the hall.

‘There doesn’t seem any point in worrying about time zones. We expect most people will stay awake until the storm hits anyway.’ She paused. ‘Food and drinks are now available in the side hall through the large archway in what we think is the west wall. The archway in the east wall leads to a giant tunnel that is northern linkway 7155. Our nearest medical post is ten minutes walk along there to the north. Basic bathroom facilities are available at each end of the corridors. Please try to conserve water.’

We watched Earth Rolling News for another few minutes, after which the entertainment value of watching the numbers began to wear thin. Fian tugged at my arm.

‘Let’s go up to our room,’ he whispered.

Dalmora, Amalie and Krath were busy controlling their vid bees, which swooped around the hall recording images of the crowd watching Earth Rolling News, and of the new arrivals appearing from the portal. Playdon was chatting to Rono. No one noticed us leave.

‘Jarra! Wake up!’

I made a noise of protest and snuggled further down into the warm cocoon of my sleep sack, but Fian was implacable.

‘Jarra!’

I reluctantly opened my eyes, and blinked at the strange granite walls around me. Oh yes, we were in Ark.

Fian was smiling down at me. ‘What went wrong there? I intended us to talk but somehow …’

‘Mmmm.’ I made a noise of pure, smug contentment. I hadn’t wanted to talk about the last few miserable days, so I’d shamelessly distracted Fian.

He laughed. ‘I’m afraid you really have to wake up now, Jarra. It’s less than two hours to portal lockdown, and we should check what the Military are doing.’

‘What?’ I sat up, totally grazzed. I’d forgotten about the alien sphere, and the Military, and … How could I have done that? Yes, I’d been completely occupied with my own problems for days, but we’d just evacuated to Ark. If I wasn’t completely nardle, I’d have spared a moment to remember exactly why we were going there.

I slid out of the sleep sack, rapidly dressed, checked no one was in the main room, and then took my Military lookup from my bag and started reading the command event summary. ‘Everything seems to be going according to plan. The civilian experts portalled to the Echo base on Adonis, Alpha sector, four hours ago. Command moved to Ark operations centre two hours ago.’

‘And the fighters?’ asked Fian.

‘The current shift has just begun pulling back towards the portals. They’ll wait there until they get the five minute warning and then portal out to join the rest of the Attack team who are already at Echo base. We’re now at alert level 4, and will move to level 3 an hour before lockdown. Threat team seem pretty confident the sphere won’t do anything drastic until the fighters have gone and the solar storm takes out the portals and leaves us vulnerable.’

I checked the latest figures from the Threat team. ‘Ugh.’

‘What?’

‘There’s a 21 per cent chance of the sphere opening fire when the portal network goes into lockdown. I didn’t think it would be that high.’

Fian frowned. ‘You believe that number?’

‘Yes. The Military have used Threat team evaluations for centuries. There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to aliens, but the same is true of Planet First assessments and …’ The reality of the situation was hitting me now. ‘Fian, there’s a one in five chance that sphere is going to start shooting at us. We still have 97 minutes to lockdown. You should portal to Echo base, Adonis, and watch events from there.’

‘No.’

The sphere had casually used a beam with a tenth of the power of a planetary power supply beam just to take out a bit of passing space debris. I’d seen Ventrak Rostha’s vid of the events on Artemis when a power beam attacked the planet, and the sphere might be able to do the same or even worse.

As a team leader, I’d sat through enough tactical meetings to know exactly what would happen if the sphere attacked Earth. The Military would be forced to portal in to defend us, and in the middle of a solar storm they wouldn’t have time to mess about. They’d use everything they had. Ark was deep underground, but with both alien and Military weapons letting loose it might not be deep enough. The worst-case scenarios had seemed comfortingly remote theoretical possibilities back in those meetings, but now they were terrifyingly real.

This was Fian’s last chance to get to safety. I lost control and yelled at him. ‘Fian, get off this nuking planet and go visit your family on Hercules!’

‘Still no.’

The idiot Deltan just grinned at me. I’d have more luck arguing with the granite wall. I considered knocking him out, dragging his unconscious body down to the portal and … No, I’d never get away with it. Some officious person would arrest me long before I made it to Australia Off-world.

I sighed and gave in. ‘Let’s check what’s going on down in the main hall.’

I daren’t take my Military lookup out in public, so I set it to forward everything to my civilian one, and headed out of the room with Fian following me. Playdon ambushed us the second we entered the main hall.

‘How is everything?’

‘Going according to plan.’ I looked around. ‘Where are the rest of team 1?’

‘They took their vid bees off to explore northern linkway 7155. I asked them to be back before portal lockdown. They probably think I’m paranoid.’

Some flexiplas chairs and a lot of cushions had appeared in the main hall. It was full of people lounging around and talking. Earth Rolling News was still chattering away on the far wall. I went over to take a look.

‘… ninety minutes to lockdown. Evacuation status is at 98 per cent. The Military request that everyone not in Ark should head there immediately. Time to lockdown is only an estimate, and you may be in danger if you don’t reach Ark. If you require assistance, call community services at once, as they will evacuate to Ark within the next twenty minutes. Hospital Earth evacuation is already complete.’

Fian appeared next to me, and handed me a sealed carton. I looked down at it in confusion.

‘Food,’ he said, waving another identical carton at me. ‘Eat.’

I pulled off the lid, and felt the carton grow hot. Inside was what appeared to be stew.

Fian handed me a spoon. ‘It’s quite good.’

I tried a mouthful of stew. He was right. I hadn’t been hungry in days, but now I was starving. I ate my way to the bottom of the carton at high speed. ‘They didn’t have cheese fluffle?’

Fian expressed his opinion of cheese fluffle by making a rude noise, and nodded at the Earth Rolling News coverage. ‘Some people still haven’t made it into Ark. What are they doing? Still trying to get the family pet into a carrier?’

‘Some may not take the warnings seriously, or just not want to come because …’ I frowned, threw my carton in a waste bin, and made a frantic call on my lookup.

Fian stood watching me. ‘Something wrong?’

‘I hope not. What’s taking him so long?’ I cancelled the call, and made it again, flagging it as emergency this time. ‘Come on, Keon, answer your lookup or the next time I see you I’ll …’

Keon’s face appeared. ‘Is there a problem, Jarra?’

Things sounded very noisy wherever he was, so I raised my voice. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’d got Issette into Ark. I know she thinks it’s creepy and …’

‘Relax! We’ve been in Ark for four hours,’ he said calmly. ‘I was hardly likely to let Issette stay outside when the Military kept screaming it was dangerous.’

‘You might have decided it was too much effort to argue with her.’

Keon laughed. ‘I’m not nearly as useless as you think I am. I’m perfectly willing to put in effort on something important, I just think most people waste a lot of energy on things that aren’t. You’re a classic example, always insisting on doing things the hard way.’

I stuck my tongue out at him.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘There’s a wild party going on here, and Issette’s in the middle of it, alternating between being happy about our new Twoing contract and panicking about being in Ark. I don’t want her getting powered in an attempt to calm her nerves.’

I felt horribly guilty. I’d been occupied with my own problems and totally forgotten Issette and Keon were renewing their Twoing contract today. ‘I should have congratulated you both. Mutual joy!’

‘Thanks,’ said Keon. ‘I may bring Issette over to visit you tomorrow. We’re only about an hour’s walk away, and I’m sure archaeologists will be much safer company than Issette’s medical student friends.’

The call ended, and my lookup chimed with an incoming mail. That was the Military forces moving to alert level 3 as planned. There was less than an hour before portal lockdown would cut off Ark from the rest of the universe. Over on the Earth Rolling News display, the red numbers started flashing urgently.

Fian and I stood with the crowd, watching the numbers slowly count down, then suddenly both our lookups chimed again. I checked my mail, saw the Military had moved from alert level 3 to level 2, and looked around wildly to check the display on Earth Rolling News. There was still twenty minutes to portal lockdown, so why had …?