Earth Star(61)

He pulled a face. ‘The argument included something about us two coming back to the class. At the start of the course, Petra tried being … friendly with me. She isn’t my type, so I said a polite no, but she didn’t want to accept it. I actually had to threaten to file an official complaint against her before she’d back off and leave me alone. Chaos embarrassing.’

I stared at him. ‘I didn’t know about this.’

He frowned. ‘You didn’t? I was chasing you at the time, but you kept pointedly ignoring me. It was only a day or two later that we got together. I assumed you’d spotted Petra kissing me, or heard Krath teasing me about it, and that was why you suddenly changed your mind about us. You’ve never mentioned it, but given the way you avoid discussing things that upset you …’

‘No.’ I waved both hands to gesture total ignorance. ‘I hadn’t seen anything.’

He pulled a face of self-mockery. ‘Now I stop to think about it, I realize you had far more important things to worry about back then. There was your grandmother’s Honour Ceremony and your parents dying. Silly of me to think you’d got jealous about Petra kissing me.’

‘I might have been jealous if I’d seen it, but …’ I shook my head and got back to the point of the conversation. ‘Joth and Petra’s argument wasn’t about you, Fian. It was about me. Petra doesn’t like the Handicapped, so she was trying to stop Joth being friends with me.’

‘I don’t want to sound as if I believe I’m the centre of the universe,’ said Fian, ‘but are you sure this was just because you’re Handicapped? Petra didn’t like being rejected, and given I paired off with you two days later then …’

‘I’m sure what happened to Joth wasn’t anything to do with either of you,’ said Dalmora. ‘He’s had several other fights with Petra in the last few weeks, and you two weren’t even here then. I was. I should have tried to …’

‘Not you,’ said Krath. ‘Me! He was my friend and …’

Amalie startled us by slapping the table with the palms of her hands. ‘Stop blaming yourselves for what happened! That sort of thing doesn’t do anyone any good. It isn’t anyone’s fault that Joth did something dangerous.’

‘But if he was so unhappy that …’ Dalmora let the words trail off.

‘He wasn’t,’ said Amalie. ‘This was just a stupid accident. If Joth had planned it deliberately, he’d have left a message with his lookup, and he didn’t.’

‘But why did he go out there then?’ asked Fian. ‘He’d seen the safety vids, so he knew how dangerous it was.’

‘You think a few safety warnings would stop him?’ Amalie shook her head. ‘We’re talking about Joth, remember! He’s the sort that you can tell a dozen times to be careful of a camp fire, and he still picks up a red hot branch and burns himself. Every batch of new colonists back home on Miranda included one like him. It was never a question of whether they’d have an accident, just when they’d have one, and exactly how bad it would be.’

She waved both hands in despair. ‘Joth could watch all the vids, hear Playdon saying over and over again that we mustn’t go outside the dome without a suit, and still think it wouldn’t matter for five minutes. He’d just had a fight with Petra. He probably only wanted to get out of the dome and away from things for a while, but once he was outside in the dark he was bound to get lost, and since he’d left his lookup in his room he couldn’t call for help.’

I stared down at my plate again while I pictured that; Joth fighting his way through the endless trees of the rainforest. Of course, being Joth, he was bound to keep heading in exactly the wrong direction and then …

There was the sound of a chair being shoved violently backwards, and I looked up in time to see Krath brush the back of one hand across his eyes and storm off through the hall door. I stood up to follow him, but Amalie shook her head at me.

‘It’s better if I talk to him. We’re … Well, if Krath ever develops some sense, then we might be something.’

I watched her go after Krath. He’d been one of Joth’s closest friends. This was going to be hard for him, for Petra, for the rest of team 4, for … for all of us.

Dalmora stood up as well. ‘I’m going to talk to Playdon. He’s looking very strained, and I’m sure he hasn’t had anything to eat.’

I glanced across at Playdon, and saw his expression and the way his shoulders sagged. This was hurting him as much, or more, than the rest of us. He felt responsible for his students and … I had two ways of dealing with emotional pain. One was to try to avoid thinking about the problem; the other was to turn the pain into anger, because anger was much easier to cope with. I couldn’t avoid thinking about this, and I couldn’t be angry with Joth, but I could be angry with …