I got the message and left her to sit alone for the rest of the evening. I suppose it was stupidly insensitive of me to have even tried talking to her, but …
The day after that, the Dig Site Federation grudgingly gave us clearance to work on the dig site again. Since we were well ahead with theory lectures now, we spent two long days excavating the Eden ruins, only stopping when forced to by the inevitable rain.
On the first day, we found nothing, but on the second day we found a stasis box. Playdon let me help him run the Stasis Q safety checks, and we opened it to find the usual data chip with a farewell vid from a family leaving Earth in Exodus century, as well as something completely different to anything I’d ever found before. A set of diaries, actual physical books, handwritten by some eccentric back in the first half of the twenty-fourth century.
I’d have liked to spend the evening reading them, but Fian and I had arranged to portal over to Earth Europe and meet my friends from Next Step. We all went to Stigga’s MeetUp as usual, because Maeth had talked Stigga into letting us back in. It should have been really zan, but I felt uncomfortable about laughing and joking so soon after Joth’s death. Issette and the others kept talking about the Ark evacuation as well, reminding me of all the things I was hiding from them. I was relieved that Earth Africa was on Green Time plus two hours, so Fian and I had a good excuse for leaving early.
The following morning, the class headed out while the early morning rain was still falling, so we could go further than usual into the Eden ruins. Our little convoy of sleds drove nearly halfway to the Eden Ring, before we turned left on to a small side clearway that suddenly ended in the middle of an anonymous area of rubble.
The sleds pulled up in a neat line at the end of the clearway and I looked across at the nearest intact buildings. They glowed white with the occasional hint of blue or gold, looking deceptively fragile with their frivolous towers, archways, and balconies. It was hard to believe they’d been abandoned for over three hundred and fifty years. A casual glance could miss the fallen walkways and encroaching rainforest plants, and expect to see people looking out from those empty windows.
I pictured these buildings in the height of their beauty, and compared them to the functional domes that were the basis of half Earth’s current architecture. The depressing natural grey of the flexiplas was usually coloured to be more cheerful, but even so …
‘I wish we could make glowplas,’ I said on the team circuit.
Playdon was right next to me, so I could hear his voice echoing as he replied, the original voice a little quieter than the one speaking over the team circuit.
‘We know it’s a form of plas, like the flexiplas we use in a thousand applications today. Tougher and far more durable than concraz, with a natural white glow. The details of the manufacturing process were lost, along with so much other technology and knowledge, in the Earth data net crash at the end of Exodus century. For a couple of hundred years, humanity was too busy struggling to survive after the collapse of Earth to worry about making glowplas. Since then, there’s been a lot of research into it, but no one has managed to come up with a form of plas that’s anything like it.’
‘We’ll probably never find the secret,’ I said. ‘We’ll never build anything as beautiful as Eden again.’
‘Don’t give up hope, Jarra,’ said Playdon. ‘Perhaps one day, scientists will rediscover the process, or some dig team will find a stasis box containing the answer.’
‘Just imagine the bounty payment they’d get for that,’ said Krath.
Everyone laughed. While we were working on New York Dig Site, our class had found a stasis box holding ancient paintings, and been rewarded with one of the bounty payments you got for especially valuable finds. Ever since then, Krath had been constantly discussing our chances of getting another reward.
‘Team 1 will be excavating the remains of a fallen building in this grid square, and will be using the team circuit for their communications,’ said Playdon. ‘We’ll let them start work, and then I’ll get team 5 doing a little practice firing tags at glowplas.’
There were some exaggerated groans from the members of team 5, who preferred to sit and watch the rest of us do the work.
‘I know, I know,’ said Playdon. ‘You lot want to be theoretical historians, and you hate the dig site work. I understand, but you must do enough of it to pass the practical side of this course because it’s a prerequisite for starting your full history degree.’
Fian went to the tag support sled, Krath and Amalie to the heavy lifts, and Dalmora to the sensor sled. They began moving them into position at the extreme edge of the clearway. I waited until the tag support sled was stationary, and then went across to collect my hover belt and tag gun. Fian attached his lifeline beam to the tag point on the back of my suit, and there was a familiar itching feeling between my shoulder blades, which vanished even before Fian had finished double-checking the beam was properly locked on to me and closed it down to minimal power. The itch was pure self-conscious nerves at being at the mercy of the lifeline beam operator, most tag leaders got it, but I had total confidence in Fian so mine faded very fast.