I hit my own switch to lock off the main pilot controls, and spoke on broadcast channel again. ‘This is Jarra Tell Morrath, please talk me through the changes to survey plane sensor settings. I know nothing at all about them.’
Dig Site Command gave me a whole set of instructions. I think I was shutting down some of the usual sensor checks for lethal hazards, like radiation which could damage body cells, and high magnetic fields that could play havoc with impact suit material and lift beams, and setting those sensors to check for major life signs instead.
I finished following the instructions, and tried engaging sensors, but a warning light flashed red at me. I was starting to panic when Fian reached across and changed one of the settings. The warning light went out and the sensors engaged.
‘You said you didn’t know about plane sensors.’
‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I just know that when Dig Site Command told you to set something to 5, you set that one to 55.’
‘I did?’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure if I misheard, or the impact suit gloves made …’
‘This is Dig Site Command,’ said the broadcast channel. ‘Asgard 6 survey plane, your sensors are now green. Move to survey start point.’
Whatever I’d done wrong, the sensors were obviously working now. I sat back in relief to watch Fian flying his search pattern.
‘You see what a good idea it was to let me give you flying lessons.’
‘Yes, it’s useful that I can help at a time like this,’ said Fian, ‘but I still don’t have any ambitions to learn to take off, or land, or get my own pilot’s licence.’
‘I’m not pushing you into it. I just wanted to give you the chance.’
‘I know you worked hard to get your pilot’s licence. I can just imagine you on trips with your school history club, nagging the professional pilots into giving you trips in planes, and teaching you to fly. How did your history teacher feel about it?’
‘Well, when he found out he was a bit … startled.’
Fian made an odd choking noise. ‘When he found out? You mean, he didn’t know? You didn’t ask his permission first?’
‘He’d never said we had to ask permission before going up in a plane.’
‘Jarra! You’re impossible.’
I giggled. ‘I suppose I am. My teacher always said I’d give him a nervous breakdown one day. After we dug up Solar 5, he sent me a mail saying he’d seen the coverage on the newzies and asking me to give my current lecturer his deepest sympathies. Playdon seemed to find that really funny.’ I paused. ‘I hope Joth’s all right, but if he is then I’ll strangle him for scaring us like this.’
‘You’ll have to queue in line behind Playdon,’ said Fian. ‘He’s not only worried sick, but this is embarrassing him and every other dig team from University Asgard. When this is over, the Dig Site Federation is going to want to know how the chaos a Foundation course student walked out of an Eden dome without an impact suit. Accidents are one thing, but criminal stupidity is very different.’
‘It’s not Playdon’s fault if Joth deliberately turned off the safety monitors. We’re supposed to be responsible adults.’
I gazed out of my window at the ruins below. The neat, flat, glowing line of a clearway ran beneath us, a path of crushed rubble heading from our dome straight into the heart of Eden. There was no sign of any human being on it.
Fian was looking down too. ‘The main clearways are laid out very neatly here. One clearway running into the site from each dome, and them all meeting the central Eden Ring clearway. Nothing like the mess in New York.’
‘When they made the New York clearways, they had huge problems with all the high hazard areas and waterways. That’s why the New York Grand Circle clearway isn’t a proper circle, and the Loop is like a mad tangle of string. Eden is inland with no river, no flooding issues, and …’
A voice suddenly spoke on broadcast channel. ‘This is Dig Site Command. Asgard 6 survey plane, you’ve now covered all the dig site area that could possibly have been reached on foot in the time available. Please move to search rainforest.’
‘This is Asgard 6 survey plane,’ Fian responded on the broadcast channel. ‘Moving to rainforest.’
He put the plane into a sharp turn to take it back towards our dome and the nearest edge of the rainforest. Joth wasn’t anywhere else, so he must be somewhere among those trees, and that was bad, very bad.
We were flying over the forest now, and I looked down at the thick mist hovering above the tree canopy. ‘Even if Joth was powered, he should have known going into the rainforest was suicidal. Playdon sent us the same safety vids he showed to the class. Insects, snakes, poisonous plants, dangerous predators. Was Joth trying to kill himself?’