Earth Star (43 page)

Authors: Janet Edwards

BOOK: Earth Star

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It was nearly an hour later that Fian and I were winched out of the hole in the tunnel roof. As soon as we were above ground, several figures in Military impact suits started spraying jets of decontaminant liquid at us.

‘You’ve been in contact with alien technology,’ said one of them, ‘so we have to follow Planet First procedures. We’ll put you through decontamination here, then portal you to a quarantine post for the follow-up medical checks. We’ve set the post up in an isolated safe area of Earth Africa.’

I gave a breathless giggle. When I was at school, my class had to watch a vid about Planet First that showed the decontamination procedures. I’d been furious about it, thinking how pointless it was to teach the Handicapped these things when we could never leave Earth. Now I was going through Planet First decontamination procedures myself!

After the jets of liquid stopped, we were given scans, and then sent through a portal to where two Military doctors were standing outside a small dome. Fian and I opened our suit hoods, and the doctors moved towards us, but I shook my head at them. They could give us a few minutes to celebrate before taking their blood and tissue samples.

Fian and I grinned at each other, then kissed like mad things, before looking up at the night sky. Among the constellations of Africa, the countless distant suns of worlds that I could never reach, was a dazzling jewel of light. Earth had a new star, and this one belonged to me.

About the Author

Janet Edwards lives in England. As a child, she read everything she could get her hands on, including a huge amount of science fiction and fantasy. She studied Maths at Oxford, and went on to suffer years of writing unbearably complicated technical documents before deciding to write something that was fun for a change. She has a husband, a son, a lot of books, and an aversion to housework.

Visit Janet at her website: www.janetedwards.com

Or on Twitter: @janetedwardsSF

Also by Janet Edwards

Earth Girl

Copyright

Harper
Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2013

Cover layout design © HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd 2013

Janet Edwards asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

Source ISBN: 9780007443505

Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9780007443536

Version 1

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.