Earth Girl (27 page)

He went over to the transport sled, unlocked a secure storage box, and took out a sort of giant gun. He attached a green cylinder to it, and handed it to me. I held the charge rifle for a second, getting a feel for the balance and weight, and rested the end experimentally against my shoulder.

‘It’s loaded with dummy charges at the moment,’ said Playdon, ‘so you can pick a target and have a few practice shots. It’s firing sizeable solid objects, so very different from using a tag gun. Always make sure you’re standing on something solid, and brace yourself before firing. If you use it when you’re hovering in mid air, then the recoil sends you flying.’

I braced myself against the side of a sled, and chose a target rock at about the same distance away as the building central post but well clear of it. I squinted through the rifle sights, aimed and fired. The rifle kicked back into my shoulder, triggering the impact suit. I was frozen in position for a moment as the suit material locked.

‘Nice shot,’ said Playdon, looking at where the dummy charge was stuck to the rock.

I laughed. ‘When the rifle recoils into my shoulder, the impact suit locks up.’

‘Yes, you have to wait a few seconds between shots. Keep going with the dummy charges for a while. Even when you’re used to a charge rifle, it’s always best to have a few goes with those before using the explosive ones. A misplaced charge is bound to happen now and then, it’s not a disaster, but it can be inconvenient.’

I took nine more shots and then Playdon seemed happy. ‘Jarra, you witness the counts.’ He unlocked the storage box again, and swapped the green charge cylinder on the rifle for a red one. ‘You see that the live charge cylinder is red and so are the charges. That’s to prevent any risk of confusing live and dummy charges.’

He counted out four objects. ‘I have four live charges.’

I confirmed that, and Playdon loaded the four charges into the cylinder. ‘Rifle is loaded with four live charges.’

I confirmed that again for the record. Playdon handed me the rifle and locked the secure box again.

‘That building is really only held up by the central column,’ he said, ‘but we need to take down the remains of two other columns as well. Jarra, try and place two charges on the central column, and one on each of the others. We’ll get more charges if we need them.’

I decided to try for the easier targets first, and used my hover belt to skim across the clearway to get a good angle on one of the isolated columns. I dropped down to stand on the rubble, positioned myself, and fired.

‘It didn’t go bang,’ complained Krath. ‘What went wrong?’

‘We set off the charges later,’ said Playdon. ‘That one looks good. Next target, Jarra.’

I headed back along the clearway to get a clean shot at the second column. That went well too, but I couldn’t find a good place on the clearway to fire at the central column. The only possible spot had a tree blocking my line of sight. ‘I think I’ll have to move over to that big lump of concrete to shoot the last charges.’

‘I agree,’ said Playdon. ‘Fian, sort out Jarra’s lifeline. She may only be out there for two minutes, but accidents can happen in seconds. That building could collapse just from having a charge shot at it.’

So there was a brief delay while we sorted out the lifeline, and then I swooped over to my chosen block of concrete. It gave me the good view I’d hoped for, so I took my two slow and careful shots at the central column.

‘How do they look, Jarra?’ Playdon asked. ‘I can’t see from here.’

‘I think they’re fine, sir.’ I headed back to the sleds and gave the rifle to Playdon.

‘All four charges fired,’ said Playdon. He detached the cylinder and opened it. ‘I’ve checked the cylinder is empty.’

I confirmed this, as safety protocols required. You really don’t want to miscount live explosives.

Playdon then locked away the rifle, took out the explosive trigger controls, and called Dig Site Command on the broadcast channel. ‘This is Asgard 6 in Sector 46. Requesting permission to fire charges.’

We waited for a few minutes, while a nearby team withdrew to safe ground, and then Dig Site Command cleared us to fire charges.

‘This is Asgard 6. Firing first charge.’ Playdon pushed a button and one of the isolated pillars folded in on itself and crumpled neatly to the ground. ‘This is Asgard 6. Firing second charge.’ The second pillar went down nicely too, and a large chunk of sagging floor broke away from the building and crashed downwards in sympathy. For a moment, I thought all the rest would follow, but that central column was stubborn.

‘This is Asgard 6. Firing charges 3 and 4.’ Playdon hit the buttons, and this time the building couldn’t resist any longer. It crashed down into a mass of rubble and twisted girders, and our class cheered in victory.

‘This is Asgard 6. Firing complete,’ Playdon reported, and Dig Site Command cleared the other team to go back to work.

We headed back to our mobile dome after that, leaving the mound of rubble to settle overnight before we started work clearing it. We stopped on the way, to collect fallen branches from a group of trees.

‘Why do we want tree branches?’ several confused voices asked.

‘Dig site tradition,’ said Playdon. ‘We’re cooking dinner outside over a camp fire tonight.’

‘He’s joking surely?’ Fian whispered in my ear.

I laughed. ‘No, he isn’t. I’ve done camp fire cooking several times on dig sites. It’s traditional, like the guitar playing.’

There is this story that you can light a camp fire by rubbing two dry sticks together, but I’d tried it several times and failed. It’s a whole lot easier to cheat and use something like a laser gun to give yourself an instant cheerful camp fire.

Amalie volunteered to be in charge of the cooking. She’d done this a lot back home, and clearly thought the rest of us would just burn the food. She showed us how to wrap potatoes in foil and put them in the heart of the fire, and how to stab the saus on cooking spears and hold them in the flames. Since it was bitterly cold, we were all wearing our impact suits for warmth, with only the hoods pulled back to show our faces.

Fian was fascinated by the camp fire cooking. ‘I’d no idea raw potatoes looked like that.’

‘We seem to have a lot of food,’ I commented.

Playdon laughed. ‘I’m allowing for you burning a lot, and also we have guests coming.’

‘Guests?’ half the class chorused the word in amazement.

‘He must mean ghosts,’ said Krath, in a spooky voice. ‘The ghosts of all the people who died in the ruins. They’ve haunted them for centuries, and they’re out there in the blackness, filled with hatred for those who come and destroy their old homes.’

It’s surprising how fast people sitting round a camp fire, in the darkness of a winter night, surrounded by vast expanses of ancient ruins, can go from cheerful to terrified. Or maybe it isn’t surprising. Anyway, Krath’s words reduced the class to near panic.

‘There aren’t ghosts are there?’ asked Amalie. ‘We don’t have ruins back home …’

Normally, someone would have made a joke about ruins being on the planetary development plan for ten years time, but there was just silence.

‘The people of New York didn’t die,’ said Playdon calmly, ‘they left for Alpha sector. Our guests are ten members of a research team that are camped half an hour away on the Grand Circle. Dig Site Command doesn’t let Foundation course teams out here without some experienced people close at hand to nursemaid them when necessary. Be nice and polite to our visitors, and don’t let me down by telling them you’re scared of ghosts.’

We put more potatoes and saus on to cook. Amalie had just declared the first batch fit to eat, when we saw the lights of hover sleds approaching between the twin lines of the glowing clearway markers.

‘Nice timing,’ I said.

‘They’re experienced enough to know when dinner is likely to be ready,’ said Playdon.

Three hover sleds pulled up, and ten people in impact suits jumped off and lowered their suit hoods. There was a babble of names.

‘So, who is Jarra?’ asked the leader of the visiting team. ‘We were listening in during the rescue of Cassandra 2.’

I stepped forward. Playdon introduced me, and the rest of team 1.

‘Nice work,’ the visitors chorused.

‘I’d had some experience on New York Fringe and other sites,’ I explained.

‘Well, it became clear that you weren’t exactly a novice when Asgard 6 launched a survey plane.’ The visiting team leader laughed. ‘The entire dig site was grazzed. That was you, wasn’t it? We thought it was the same voice.’

‘Yes, that was Jarra,’ said Playdon.

‘And we all knew you weren’t just going along for the ride with Playdon flying it since you’d never get him in a plane …’

Playdon groaned. ‘Thank you, Graw. Go ahead and tell my whole class I’m afraid of heights.’

‘Well, most people are,’ said Graw. ‘I know I am. If the deity meant us to fly, we’d have been born with wings. No one is ever getting me in a plane. Dig Site Command can send as many mails as they like about the pilot shortages, and asking people to volunteer to learn, but they aren’t getting anywhere with me.’

He grinned at me. ‘If you want a job, Jarra, then New York Dig Site’s professional pilot retired at Year End, and Dig Site Command are still looking for a new one. They’ll probably be sending you and Playdon mails about it.’

I laughed. ‘Thanks, but I want to get my pre-history degree, and I can’t do that as a full time professional pilot. I’d be happy to fly a few more survey legs for them though. I’m hoping to teach Fian to fly, and that depends on us getting some more time in planes. We’ll be changing dig site a lot during the year, so we probably won’t get very far.’

‘Just talk to Dig Site Command when you arrive at any of the big sites,’ said Graw. ‘They’ll all be happy for you to have flying time to train a new pilot. Keeping up pilot numbers is a major concern for the entire Dig Site Federation. If your dome doesn’t have a plane, you can always fly one in from a dome that does.’

‘That would be zan!’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Fian in a dubious voice. ‘Totally zan …’

I felt suddenly guilty. ‘Of course, you don’t have to, Fian.’

‘Oh yes I do,’ he said in his best fake martyr voice. ‘I’m not having anyone else go up in a plane with you.’

Everyone laughed.

We started eating after that, and then two of the visitors produced guitars and demanded to know who our guitar players were. We pointed at Dalmora, and the visitors started teaching her some new songs, and gave her a data chip with hundreds more.

Playdon eventually brought the evening to a close by announcing that our visitors probably wanted to get back to their own dome.

‘What Playdon means,’ said Graw, ‘is that he’s a slave driver. He doesn’t want us keeping you up late when he’ll be working you to death tomorrow.’

The visitors headed off on their sleds, and we threw rubble on the fire and went into our dome. I went across to my sleep sack in its place by the wall, began taking off my impact suit, and was disconcerted to find Krath next to me.

‘That’s my spot,’ complained Fian.

‘No it isn’t,’ said Krath. ‘My sleep sack and my spot.’

‘You swapped sleep sacks!’ Fian accused him, outraged.

I noticed Playdon drifting in our direction, clearly ready for trouble.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Krath, happily. ‘What matters is my stuff is here now.’

‘Fian claimed that spot,’ I said. ‘I suggest you give it back.’

‘I want to be close at hand to defend you from the ghosts, Jarra’ said Krath.

‘I can defend myself,’ I said. ‘Now move!’

‘Oh come on …’ said Krath. ‘I could be much more fun than some prudish Deltan …’

He stopped at this point. Possibly that was because my left hand had his arm twisted up behind his back, while my right arm was round his neck.

‘I asked nicely,’ I said. ‘Now, take a hint, and tell Fian he can have his spot back.’

Fian wasn’t waiting to be told. He’d tracked down his belongings and brought them over, and now evicted Krath’s invading possessions, banishing them to the cold centre of the dome.

I released Krath and waved him a gentle farewell, before changing into my fleecy sleep suit.

‘That’s not fair,’ grumbled Krath.

‘Yes it is,’ said Playdon, who appeared quite amused by the whole thing. ‘You were in breach of three rules there, Krath. First, dig site custom. Second, social etiquette. Third, plain common sense. You’re just lucky that Jarra didn’t throw you across the dome.’

I looked at Fian’s face and laughed.

We settled down for the night eventually. It was a disturbed night as usual in these conditions. There’s always someone restlessly moving about, and there’s always someone who snores.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Fian whispered in my ear. ‘Our first night together. This is so romantic.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘just you, me, and twenty-seven other people. It reminds me of that joke about the Betans and the …’

‘If you start making Betan sex jokes,’ said Fian in a stern voice, ‘I’ll have to give you warnings under the Gamman moral code.’

I had to pull my sleep sack over my head to muffle my giggles.

Next day, we realized that the visitor’s jokes about Playdon being a slave-driver weren’t jokes at all. The man was truly heartless. He woke us up when it was still dark outside, allowed us a brief breakfast of packaged food, and had us outside loading the sleds at the crack of dawn.

‘I didn’t know days could start this early,’ said Fian. ‘It’s practically still yesterday.’

I laughed at the civilians’ agonized faces, but even I was feeling it was a bit excessive starting work at this hour. It wasn’t easy work either. I first discovered what was in store for us when we’d set up the sensor net and I went across to the sensor sled. Dalmora was staring at the screen with a panicky expression. ‘I don’t understand this …’

Playdon was looking over Dalmora’s shoulder at the screen. ‘What do you make of it, Jarra?’

I glanced at the screen, and was grazzed. Convinced I had to be wrong, I took a closer look. ‘Underground … Is that part of the underground transport system?’