‘Haven’t they got anything better to show people than old coverage of me screaming my head off?’
‘I think they’re getting a bit desperate,’ said Fian. ‘They keep showing vid clips about Tellon Blaze too. Watching people cutting a path through trees gets a bit monotonous after a while.’
I felt guilty. ‘I should be out there, shouldn’t I?’
I sighed and picked up my impact suit. Fian instantly went to the front window, and feigned a deep interest in what was happening outside. If I couldn’t force myself back into my suit, he’d pretend I hadn’t even tried to put it on, but I couldn’t hide indefinitely inside the Field Command sled. I’d have to call Colonel Torrek, and …
Oh this was ridiculous. I’d been wearing impact suits since I was eleven. My school history club had to make special arrangements to get one small enough to fit me. It had been a running joke that I didn’t need to set the identification on my suit because it was obvious who I was from my size.
Yes, I’d had a problem after the accident, but I’d put on this impact suit in my fit of fury after Gaius Devon called me an ape, I’d stayed in it for over twenty-four hours without it biting me, and I could get back into it now. I started grimly rolling the special fabric over my feet. It felt strangely like when I first put on my flowgold ring, my skin crawled nervously as it felt the touch of the fabric, but I kept going and suffered a dizzying sensation of relief as I pulled up my hood and sealed my suit.
Fian turned and caught my arm as I swayed. ‘Jarra? Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said shakily. ‘I’m in.’ I shook my head to banish the odd feeling of wetness around my eyes, and spoke again in a more controlled voice. ‘I’m fine. We’d better give Earth Rolling News a thrill by showing ourselves.’
Fian changed into his own suit, which gave me a couple more minutes to calm down. I was still very aware of the impact suit fabric enclosing me, but hopefully that would gradually fade. I went to sit by the controls and peered out of the window. I couldn’t see the working teams, but they’d left a path lined with piled-up logs behind them.
‘We might as well drive the sled closer to the action,’ I said, and started it moving. ‘How near are they to the target area?’
Fian came and sat next to me. ‘Close, but they won’t make it tonight. Progress is slow dealing with trees this size, and they keep stopping to do sensor scans. Pereth knows we aren’t sure of the exact location of the artefact, and he doesn’t want to either break it, or trigger some alien technology that could injure people. Colonel Torrek made a statement a couple of hours ago, saying we have to take our time and do this right.’
‘The alien artefact probably doesn’t even exist,’ I muttered. ‘I’m feeling like the biggest fake ever.’ The path through the trees was as wide as a dig site clearway, but bumpy to drive along because of frequent tree stumps. ‘They’re cutting the trees down, rather than pulling them up?’
‘Yes,’ said Fian. ‘Pulling them up was hard with trees this size and left a huge mess of soil and rocks.’
We reached an area of frantic activity, I parked the sled at the side of the path, and we put on hover belts and went outside. I listened to the purposeful chatter on the dig site broadcast channel, and gradually made sense of what was happening.
One group of heavy lift sleds were towing huge fallen trees towards us, and abandoning them in the middle of the path. As each new tree arrived, people moved forward with lasers to cut it up. A second group of heavy lifts were following them down the path, clearing up the mass of logs they left behind by stacking them out of the way at the sides of the path. Two more heavy lifts brought up the rear, running drag nets to remove the remaining debris of branches and twigs and leave the path clear behind them.
Fian and I hovered our way past the path sweepers, the log stackers, and the people wielding lasers. Everyone saw our Military impact suits, and stopped work to watch us go by. I felt self-conscious, and horribly aware I was probably just wasting the time of all these people. I was grateful my face was safely hidden inside my impact suit.
Ahead of us, we could now see where the trees were being felled to extend the path towards our target area. The tree-towing group of heavy lift sleds drove past us, taking the latest batch of fallen trees to be cut up. Once they were out of the way, half a dozen tag leaders moved in to fire tags at the next batch of trees.
I watched the tag leaders enviously for a moment, wishing I could trade places with one of them, then forced myself to turn away. Pereth’s red Site Leader sled was close by, I’d left the poor man to cope alone for hour after hour, and it was time I went to talk to him. I had to try to sound knowledgeable and confident of success, though I felt neither.