Chasing Stars (12 page)

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, as he pulled out into the traffic.

‘Out of the city. Do you like mountains?’

‘I don’t know. But I don’t really care where we go so long as there’re no reporters there.’

‘No reporters, I promise. Just a few hikers and – if we’re lucky – the odd bear.’

‘I don’t think I care for that kind of luck.’

He drove quickly, frequently changing lanes to get past slower vehicles. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, curious about this strange boy who was Ryan’s friend. The tattooed arm was the one closest to me, inked in every colour imaginable from his shoulder to his wrist, like a sleeve. There was a golden phoenix rising from the ashes on his wrist, a red dragon curling round his bicep, a mermaid rising from a wave over his shoulder. Every bit of space between the mythical creatures was filled with wild waves and raging flames. His face was all chiselled, sharp angles, and I’d probably have thought he was pretty cute if my heart wasn’t already spoken for.

We left the downtown area behind, passed giant strip malls and supermarkets the size of aeroplane hangars. The roads were wider and straighter than at home, lined with both tall, leafy trees and massive electronic billboards.

When we approached the outskirts of the city, Peg slowed to a crawl. ‘That’s my high school,’ he said, pointing at a low white building with tinted windows. ‘It was Orion’s too.’

I looked out of the window. The school was built from white stone; it sat amid neat green lawns and perfectly shaped maple trees. Lakeborough Space and Time Academy. A flag fluttered from the top of a pole – there were stars and stripes, but in the middle were two thick white circles: one with a red maple leaf and the other with a polar bear.

‘It’s not a regular school,’ explained Peg. ‘It’s for Space and Time cadets.’

‘So you want to work at the Institute?’

‘My dream job would be as a pilot on the Inter-Planetary Spaceport. It’s a long shot, though.’

‘How come?’

‘Very competitive. I’m on a good program, but I can’t afford the best training.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Eighteen. I have three more years before I qualify.’ He glanced at me. ‘How old are you?’

‘A hundred and twenty-seven.’

Peg smiled. ‘So you won’t be enrolling in the Academy then. Too bad. With all your experience, I bet you’d make a great time agent.’

‘I don’t really have much experience.’

‘You’ve come face to face with a cleaner.’

‘Two, actually.’

‘And travelled more than a hundred years through time. You have more experience than all of the cadets in our class put together. More than some of the instructors.’

I laughed. ‘Perhaps I’ll apply for a teaching position then.’

A few minutes past the school, the road grew wider, the houses were bigger, each sitting in a beautifully landscaped garden.

‘Ry’s family live in a house down by Hidden Valley Pond,’ Peg said, pointing towards my window.

‘This looks like a wealthy neighbourhood.’

‘His dad’s an admiral.’

‘What about you, Peg? Are you a rich kid as well?’

He smiled. ‘Not exactly. My mother died when I was a baby and my dad’s a miner. He’s living out on Titan now with his new wife.’

‘When you say Titan . . .’

‘Moon of Saturn. The Titan colonies have been around for twenty-five years.’

‘But Titan doesn’t have an atmosphere?’

‘There are domes on Titan. Huge domes, each one the size of a big city, with an artificial atmosphere.’

‘Why would anyone want to live in a place like that?’

‘Are you kidding? The chance to explore a new world? Imagine looking into the sky and there’s Saturn.’

I thought then of the planet Eden, a living breathing world with pink cliffs and blue skies. A world with an atmosphere just like Earth’s. Not a dead moon.

‘And the money of course,’ Peg continued. ‘Miners on Titan make a fortune. Most do ten years, then come home, buy a big house and retire.’

I shook my head. ‘I feel like I’ve ended up in a science fiction film. Are there any other planets or moons that have been colonised?’

‘Only the moon.’

‘That’s so strange.’

‘They say when you jump to the future the adjustment takes longer than travel to the past. They also say finding places that remind you of your own time helps. I hope you’ll like this place in the mountains. I doubt it’s changed one bit in the last hundred years. But to answer your question: I’m not rich. I have a full scholarship to Lakeborough Academy to pay for my tuition and flight time.’

We passed a sign that read
Charge, Food, Lodging
and Peg took the exit road.

‘We’ll need water,’ he said.

He pulled into what looked like a petrol station, though the drivers appeared to be plugging their cars into some sort of silver battery charger rather than filling their tanks. Peg ran into the shop to buy a couple of bottles of water and then we were back on the highway again.

The road began to climb. I touched a button to wind down my window. The sharp scent of pine poured into the car.

‘What do your parents do, Eden?’

‘They’re dead.’

He tore his eyes from the road and gave me an apologetic look. ‘Of course they are. Everyone you know is dead. Except Ryan.’

‘They died when I was six. A long time ago. My mother’s younger sister Miranda brought me up. She’s a legal secretary. I guess I should say she
was
.’

It was the first time I’d thought about Miranda since leaving my own time. My throat closed up. I forced myself to swallow.

‘It must be hard,’ he said quietly, ‘leaving everyone behind.’

‘Ryan’s dad told me to start building a new life, but it’s not easy when you don’t know anybody and things are so different it takes you two days to work out how to turn on the TV.’

‘What’s a “tee vee”?’

I sighed to myself. ‘Technology has changed so much you don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s a screen that you watch films on. It doesn’t matter.’

The road wound higher and higher until we were up in the mountains, encircled by them, and the horizon was lost behind thick green trees and low cloud. There were no mountains where I came from, just miles of coastline and broad horizons where sky and sea met in a blur of blue. If Cornwall was blues and greys, this place was greens. Peg pulled off the main road and drove along a bumpy track. I breathed in the smell of fresh, living wood.

‘This is it,’ said Peg, parking the car on a dusty verge.

Outside the car, the sun poured down its thick, sticky heat.

‘The trees will shade us,’ he said, throwing me a bottle of water. He stuck his own bottle into his belt.

We walked to a poorly marked trail that snaked its way up the side of the mountain, hairpin bend to hairpin bend, each turn offering a view out over endless forested hills. Despite the shade from the leaves, I was hot and clammy and I emptied my water bottle in no time. Just when I was about to suggest we head back to the car, I heard a noise. A roar, like a busy road.

‘Nearly there,’ he said.

I didn’t realise we had a destination.

We followed the trail around a corner of white rock and there it was. A wide, shallow pool with a raging, white waterfall cascading into it. I looked up. Above was another pool with a larger waterfall. The water thundered and rushed.

‘The falls are bigger in the spring,’ said Peg. ‘But the water is warmer at this time of year.’

I pulled my sandals off and waded in. The water was colder than anything I’d ever felt. For a moment it took my breath away.

‘Good, huh?’ he said, oblivious to my complete and total body shock.

He was up to his thighs. His trousers had been discarded on the rocks, and he was wearing just his swimming shorts and a vest top. There was no way I was stripping down to my underwear. My dress was long, but light and loose. I was pretty sure I could swim in it. As I shuffled deeper into the water, he dived under the mossy green surface of the pool, emerging several metres away, under the spray.

‘Come on!’ he yelled at me. ‘It doesn’t get much better than this.’

His smile was so big and enthusiastic that, although my toes felt like they were going to turn to ice and fall off, I waded deeper, trying to ignore the ache in my flesh, the jolt of pain in my heart, the tightness in my lungs. And then, before I could talk myself out of it, I dived under the smooth green surface myself. The water was different to the scratchy salt water I was used to. This water was like silk; it was oily and slippery and coated my skin. When I surfaced, I gasped for warm air. Peg was treading water beneath the spray. I swam to him and when I was under the falls I leant back and opened my mouth a crack, feeling the icy water splatter on my tongue. This was the best feeling I’d had since arriving in the twenty-second century.

‘You want to climb up to the upper pool?’ Peg called out.

‘Yes!’ I yelled above the roar of the falls.

He pushed himself on to the rocks at the base of the falls and I followed. The rocks here were wet and slippery and I crunched my toes up tight to give myself traction. I followed Peg to the side of the waterfall and he pointed out the way up the rocks. It was only about fifteen metres, but I’d always been scared of heights.

‘It’s easy,’ he told me. ‘Much easier than it looks. Just follow my moves.’

He began the climb. I followed close behind, careful to match my handholds and footholds to his, making sure I never looked down. Every time a wave of nausea threatened to overcome me, I reminded myself that Ryan was locked up and facing trial. What I was doing was nothing compared with what he was facing.

When I finally hauled myself over the ledge and on to the sunny, rocky plateau by the upper pool, I was glad I’d made the effort. The waterfall here was even higher than the one below and tiny sequins of golden mist sprayed the air. Peg gestured to a flat, rocky area to the side of the falls. I joined him.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I said.

He smiled to himself and pulled his wet vest top over his head, laying it out on a sunny rock to dry. I was still in my green dress. Underneath I was wearing nothing but my underwear.

‘You should take off your dress,’ he said as if reading my mind.

‘I only have underwear underneath.’

He shrugged. ‘I only have these shorts.’

‘That’s different.’

But I knew he was right. Although the sun was powerful, the heavy wet material clung to my skin, chilling me to my bones. I peeled off the dress and laid it out on the hot rocks. Peg was lying near the top of the waterfall, his eyes shut. Feeling exposed in my matching blue bra and knickers, I lay on a flat rock nearby and shut my eyes.

‘So what’s a ‘‘tee vee’’?’ he asked after a while.

‘Television,’ I said. ‘You watch movies and documentar­ies and the news on it.’

‘So it’s a com-screen?’

‘What’s a com-screen?’

‘You know the big screen on the wall in your room? That’s a com-screen. You can use it to call people and find out information about anything and watch movies.’

‘Right. So it’s a TV and a phone and the internet all-in-one.’

‘If you say so.’

‘The twenty-second century isn’t so different from the twenty-first century. Just enough to make me feel stupid.’

‘I’ll be your guide to the twenty-second century. Any questions, just ask.’

‘I have a million questions.’

‘Shoot.’

‘So is America still the most powerful nation in the world? Or let me guess – is it China?’

‘America is still the most powerful country in the world. However, not the America you’re thinking of.’

I waited for him to continue.

‘The United States of America no longer exists. Most of what was once the United States, together with Canada and Alaska all now comprise the Federation of North America.’

‘Really? Canada and America together?’

‘Around the middle of the last century, climate change really hit America. A lot of farmland became too dry to farm. At the same time, Canada became much more suitable for farming. And then when the Arctic ice melted, everyone wanted to claim territory in the Arctic Ocean. By joining forces with Canada, America was able to do that, as well as putting in a claim for Greenland.’

‘What happened to China?’ I asked.

‘China was the most powerful nation until about 2048. But climate change forced them to focus on feeding their population.’

‘Anything else I should know?’

‘Depends what interests you. Politics? Economics? The law?’

‘Tell me about the Guardians of Time. I know a little, but not much.’

‘There are five of them. In many ways, they have more power than the president, parliament and the supreme court together. They approve missions to the past and future and try all cases that come to the Time Court. Every two years one of the Guardians is elected president of the Space and Time Institute. The president sets the agenda for the next two years. Right now is election time. If Admiral Wolfe wins the presidency, there will be no time travel. He’s dead set against it. If Westland wins, time travel will still be allowed.’