‘They took their vid bees off to explore northern linkway 7155. I asked them to be back before portal lockdown. They probably think I’m paranoid.’
Some flexiplas chairs and a lot of cushions had appeared in the main hall. It was full of people lounging around and talking. Earth Rolling News was still chattering away on the far wall. I went over to take a look.
‘… ninety minutes to lockdown. Evacuation status is at 98 per cent. The Military request that everyone not in Ark should head there immediately. Time to lockdown is only an estimate, and you may be in danger if you don’t reach Ark. If you require assistance, call community services at once, as they will evacuate to Ark within the next twenty minutes. Hospital Earth evacuation is already complete.’
Fian appeared next to me, and handed me a sealed carton. I looked down at it in confusion.
‘Food,’ he said, waving another identical carton at me. ‘Eat.’
I pulled off the lid, and felt the carton grow hot. Inside was what appeared to be stew.
Fian handed me a spoon. ‘It’s quite good.’
I tried a mouthful of stew. He was right. I hadn’t been hungry in days, but now I was starving. I ate my way to the bottom of the carton at high speed. ‘They didn’t have cheese fluffle?’
Fian expressed his opinion of cheese fluffle by making a rude noise, and nodded at the Earth Rolling News coverage. ‘Some people still haven’t made it into Ark. What are they doing? Still trying to get the family pet into a carrier?’
‘Some may not take the warnings seriously, or just not want to come because …’ I frowned, threw my carton in a waste bin, and made a frantic call on my lookup.
Fian stood watching me. ‘Something wrong?’
‘I hope not. What’s taking him so long?’ I cancelled the call, and made it again, flagging it as emergency this time. ‘Come on, Keon, answer your lookup or the next time I see you I’ll …’
Keon’s face appeared. ‘Is there a problem, Jarra?’
Things sounded very noisy wherever he was, so I raised my voice. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’d got Issette into Ark. I know she thinks it’s creepy and …’
‘Relax! We’ve been in Ark for four hours,’ he said calmly. ‘I was hardly likely to let Issette stay outside when the Military kept screaming it was dangerous.’
‘You might have decided it was too much effort to argue with her.’
Keon laughed. ‘I’m not nearly as useless as you think I am. I’m perfectly willing to put in effort on something important, I just think most people waste a lot of energy on things that aren’t. You’re a classic example, always insisting on doing things the hard way.’
I stuck my tongue out at him.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘There’s a wild party going on here, and Issette’s in the middle of it, alternating between being happy about our new Twoing contract and panicking about being in Ark. I don’t want her getting powered in an attempt to calm her nerves.’
I felt horribly guilty. I’d been occupied with my own problems and totally forgotten Issette and Keon were renewing their Twoing contract today. ‘I should have congratulated you both. Mutual joy!’
‘Thanks,’ said Keon. ‘I may bring Issette over to visit you tomorrow. We’re only about an hour’s walk away, and I’m sure archaeologists will be much safer company than Issette’s medical student friends.’
The call ended, and my lookup chimed with an incoming mail. That was the Military forces moving to alert level 3 as planned. There was less than an hour before portal lockdown would cut off Ark from the rest of the universe. Over on the Earth Rolling News display, the red numbers started flashing urgently.
Fian and I stood with the crowd, watching the numbers slowly count down, then suddenly both our lookups chimed again. I checked my mail, saw the Military had moved from alert level 3 to level 2, and looked around wildly to check the display on Earth Rolling News. There was still twenty minutes to portal lockdown, so why had …?
We headed for the Alpha corridor, and as soon as we were out of view of the crowd we broke into a run.
26
Fian and I tumbled into our room, and I yanked open my bag to grab my Military lookup. It seemed to take a couple of centuries to enter codes, and then an image appeared.
‘Oh nuke!’ I projected the image against the cavern wall. Normally, a light background is better for projections than dark, but in this case the dark of granite was perfect. The image showed the alien sphere surrounded by a glowing mist of swirling colours.
‘What’s it doing?’ Fian asked.