Earth Flight (12 page)

‘A Betan betrothal,’ said Drago.

I sat down again. ‘What’s the difference between a betrothal and a Twoing contract?’

‘A Betan betrothal is where the partners declare their intention to marry in the future, and their clans give their consent to the formal contract,’ said Drago. ‘The betrothal continues until you marry or petition your clan councils to break it. When Beta rejoined the other sectors at the end of the Second Roman Empire, the recognition of all Betan betrothal contracts and marriages, whether for duo or triad partnerships, was a key condition in the reunification treaty. Earth Registry, like every Registry outside Beta sector, just ignores the clan contract side. They treat betrothals as a continuous series of three month Twoing contracts, automatically renewing them until the partners tell them to stop.’

I didn’t have any problem with a continuous series of Twoing contracts. I looked at Fian and he nodded his agreement, so I spoke for both of us. ‘Yes, we could do that.’

‘There’s just one small complication,’ said Drago. ‘It’s not socially acceptable for a member of a clan of the
gentes maiores
to be betrothed to a non-Betan, because they’re effectively clanless and have no social status.’

Fian looked puzzled. ‘But you married Marlise, and she isn’t Betan.’

‘Yes. We’re a Military clan, so we regularly have marriages with non-Betans. There’s a standard way of dealing with this situation.’ Drago paused. ‘Fian, how would you feel about being adopted?’

11

Our line of sleds drove along Gap 19. I was sitting with the rest of team 1 and Raven at the back of a transport sled. We had our impact suit hoods down to enjoy the sunshine, while Krath checked newzie channels on his lookup and babbled at us.

‘Still no news from Alien Contact. I suppose the Isolationists are happy about that, but all this waiting is really frustrating me.’

‘Think how Fian and I feel about it,’ I said bitterly.

‘My nardle dad has joined the Isolationist Party,’ added Krath. ‘He keeps messaging me, ranting on about how human culture shouldn’t be polluted by alien influences. Oh and he wants me to talk you two into appearing on his stupid vid channel.’

‘The answer’s no,’ said Fian.

‘I told him that and …’ Krath broke off and stared at his lookup. ‘Totally amaz!’

I frowned. ‘What’s happened now?’

Krath grinned and used his lookup to project a holo image in midair. I watched in horror as miniature figures of Fian and I madly kissed each other.

‘It’s practically Betan sex vid standard,’ said Krath in a gloating voice.

‘Oh nuke!’ I buried my face in my hands.

‘That’s a vid of us kissing after we sent the message to the alien sphere.’ Fian’s voice was impressively calm. ‘We were at the Military quarantine post. It’s not surprising a Military vid bee recorded us, but how the chaos did the newzies get hold of the vid?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ I moaned. ‘What will your father think when he sees it?’

‘Nuke my father,’ said Fian.

The vid clip ended, but Krath promptly started replaying it.

‘Krath,’ said Dalmora, ‘turn off that vid clip.’

‘But I’m studying Fian’s kissing technique,’ said Krath.

‘Turn it off!’ said Amalie.

Krath sighed and turned off his lookup. ‘I wish we could all go to the Tell clan ceremony instead of just watching it on the newzies afterwards. What’s a Betan betrothal like, Jarra?’

I groaned. ‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t dared to ask, but it’s bound to be horribly embarrassing.’

‘The clan said I could invite my family and Jarra could invite her ProParents,’ said Fian. ‘My mother’s coming, my sister said she’s too busy, and my father said I was out of my mind.’

‘Candace is coming,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t invite my ProDad. Technically, he isn’t my ProDad right now anyway. After the Military found out he’d sold our secret mail addresses to the newzies, Hospital Earth suspended his ProParent status pending a hearing.’

‘Your ProDad can think himself lucky you talked Colonel Leveque out of pressing charges against him,’ said Fian.

Raven grinned. ‘SECOP tell me Rayne Tar Cameron’s still complaining about that. She wanted him locked up for life, or preferably executed, for creating extra work for her team.’

‘Was your ProDad involved in the skunk juice attack as well?’ asked Krath.

I shook my head. ‘No, thank chaos. I’ve always known he cared more about getting paid than about me, but it would be horrible to think my own ProDad helped someone attack me.’

Dalmora tactfully changed the subject. ‘As clan members, you’ll automatically become Betan citizens. Will Fian’s name change to Fian Tell Eklund?’

Fian shook his head. ‘Clan custom is that only descendants of Tellon Blaze use the clan prefix.’

‘When do you have to actually get married?’ asked Krath.

‘No fixed date,’ said Fian, ‘but if we haven’t got married by the time we’re thirty, we have to appear before clan council every year for a social responsibility lecture.’

I laughed. ‘Drago says his father gives him that lecture every few weeks anyway.’

Krath shook his head. ‘But what if you hate each other and want to split up?’

Amalie hit him.

‘Ouch,’ said Krath. ‘Raven should stop Amalie hitting me.’

‘I’d stop her hitting Jarra or Fian,’ said Raven, ‘but she can hit you all she likes.’

‘We can petition clan council if we want to break the betrothal,’ said Fian. ‘If I’ve been a clan member for a year and a day, I’d still keep my dual Deltan and Betan citizenship afterwards, but I’d be thrown out of the clan because my adoption depends on my relationship with Jarra.’

I was grazzed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘It’s in clause 8 of the betrothal contract,’ said Fian.

‘I gave up trying to understand that after clause 3,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t realized Betan betrothal contracts had so much legal stuff. Drago said ours was simple compared to the ones linked with clan business mergers and property transfers, but …’

I broke off my sentence because our sleds had stopped moving. Playdon jumped down from the lead sled, and spoke over our suit communications units so everyone could hear him. ‘We’re excavating two residential buildings today. Team 1 will work on this one.’ He pointed at the closest building. ‘They’ll use the team circuit for their communications, and team 4 will be their relief. Team 2 will work a little further along the gap. They’ll use channel 1, and team 3 will be their relief. Team 5 will just be watching.’

There were enthusiastic cheers from the members of team 5, who hated excavation work and planned careers as theoretical historians rather than archaeologists.

Working teams started shuffling sleds, while everyone else arranged themselves on transport sleds to watch. Since team 4 would be working shifts with us, they sat on the nearest transport with some of team 5. I noticed Steen and Petra glaring at each other.

Dalmora went to her enclosed sensor sled, Amalie and Krath to their bulky heavy lift sleds, and Fian to the slightly smaller tag support sled. I stood on the safe side of the red line and stared up at the building, planning my tactics. It was over twenty storeys high, with flexible joints connecting it to the neighbouring buildings on either side. A network of cracks ran through the front concraz wall, but the imbedded reinforcement mesh still held it together. I sighed, pulled up the hood of my impact suit and sealed the front, sentencing myself to the faint mustiness of the suit air system.

My team had their sleds in position now. I headed across to Fian’s tag support sled, put on a hover belt, and waited for a moment while he attached the lifeline beam to the tag point on the back of my impact suit. Beyond the red line, the perfectly smooth surface of the gap was littered with fragments of concraz. I used my hover belt to skim over them, and set up two special directional sensors next to the wall of the building.

‘Sensor net is active and green,’ said Dalmora on the team circuit.

I went across to join her on the sensor sled. The six peripheral hazard displays were all completely clear, so I concentrated on the central display. Dalmora played with the sensor controls, expanding the image upwards and rotating it.

‘You’ve got two intact floors right at the top of the building,’ she said. ‘The rest have collapsed.’

Playdon arrived to check the display himself. ‘Those two top floors will be highly unstable. You’ll have to work from outside the building and cut your way through the wall, Jarra.’

I nodded. Impact suits are amaz at protecting you, but I didn’t want to test mine by having a mass of concraz fall twenty floors and land on my head.

Playdon handed me a laser gun. ‘I’ll stay here while you do the cutting. I know I don’t need to tell you to be careful with the laser.’

‘No, sir. Lasers scare me to death.’ I checked the safety catch was on the evil thing, then headed towards the building. The front wall had a central gap where the door had been, so I just needed to extend the hole sideways in both directions to give us good access.

I carefully positioned myself to one side of the doorway, and turned off my hover belt so I could stand perfectly still. A large piece of concraz fell from somewhere high above, narrowly missing me.

‘Errr, you’re using laser cutters today?’ Raven asked on the team circuit.

‘Only the smaller laser guns,’ said Playdon.

‘Laser guns are just as lethal as full size cutters,’ said Raven. ‘They can cut through impact suits as easily as they cut through walls.’

‘I believe I’ve mentioned that to my class several times,’ said Playdon.

There was smothered laughter on the team circuit. Playdon reminded us of the safety issues every single time anyone used a laser.

‘It’s just … I didn’t realize your excavation work was so dangerous. Civilians shouldn’t be taking such risks.’

A chorus of voices instantly responded with the proud joke that had started when the dig teams at New York Main Dig Site rescued the Military from the wreck of Solar 5. ‘We aren’t civilians, we’re archaeologists!’

Raven’s resigned sigh was perfectly audible over the team circuit. ‘All right, but please be careful, Jarra.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Fian is taking care of me. He’s an amaz tag support.’

I waited a moment to make sure the building wasn’t going to shed more concraz on me, then switched the safety off the laser gun.

‘Laser on.’ I triggered the deceptively innocent looking, glittering beam.

‘Laser on,’ echoed Fian’s voice on the team circuit.

I cut horizontally across from the top of the doorway, and then vertically downwards, the beam of the laser slicing smoothly through the concraz wall and its reinforcing mesh. As the section of wall started toppling forward, I cut the laser and set the safety on.

‘Safety on,’ I said.

‘Safety on,’ echoed Fian’s voice.

As he spoke, the lifeline beam tugged at my back, pulling me upwards and away from the building. I dangled in midair as rubble cascaded through the newly widened hole. When things calmed down, Fian landed me gently on the ground again.

I cut out three more sections of wall, then started extending the hole on the other side of the original doorway. As I was making the first vertical cut, a whole area of wall broke under the weight of rubble behind it. Rocks tumbled towards me as I set the laser gun to safety and shouted the vital words. ‘Safety on!’

Fian’s lifeline beam snatched me upwards, but one large block of concraz hit my side. My impact suit instantly triggered, the material locking around me, knocking the breath out of me and freezing me rigid, right arm still outstretched with my hand gripping the laser gun. I hovered on the edge of impact suit blackout, dimly hearing voices over the team circuit. One of them was Fian.

‘Jarra, are you hurt? Jarra?’

I came back to full consciousness, breathless and still unable to move. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I hate having to wait to pull you out,’ said Fian.

‘Safety rules forbid moving someone holding an active laser for very good reasons,’ said Playdon. ‘The laser only has to waver to shear off an arm or worse. Everyone should understand that by now.’

Voices chorused on the team circuit. ‘We understand.’

Playdon groaned. ‘I wish you’d all stop parroting that like 2-year-olds. I should never have let Professor Kipkibor near one of my classes. Jarra, stop giggling!’

I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t me because everyone said I had a very distinctive giggle. ‘Sorry, sir. I’m unfrozen now, Fian, so you can put me down.’

Fian landed me on the ground near the building. The hole in the front wall was much bigger than I’d planned, but that would just make my job easier. I took the laser gun back to Playdon.

‘Thank you,’ said Playdon. ‘I’ll go and supervise team 2 doing their laser cutting now. Call me at once if you have any problems.’

‘I aged about fifty years in the last five minutes,’ said Raven in a plaintive voice. ‘Is it really worth taking all these risks just to find out about history?’

‘We find more than history,’ I said. ‘Just before Exodus century, human civilization was at its peak, building incredible places like Ark, Eden, and New Tokyo. Then everyone rushed off to new worlds, the Earth data net crashed, and we lost half of human knowledge. These ruins are full of clues to lost science, either preserved by pure chance or protected inside a stasis box.’

‘Lots of everyday items use ancient technology rediscovered by dig teams,’ added Fian. ‘Food dispensers, impact suits, even hover luggage.’

‘I’d no idea,’ said Raven.

I inspected the huge heap of rubble in front of the building. A small statue was glowing blue amongst the white and grey of concraz. I picked it up, admired the still perfect, glowplas figure of a dancing girl, then took out my tag gun and spent a couple of minutes firing electronic tags at the larger chunks of concraz.

‘Amalie, Krath, please shift that lot over to the left.’

The beams of the two heavy lift sleds came to life, swinging across to lock on to the electronic tags and lift the concraz out of the way. I left them working and headed back to the transport sled with the statue.