Earth Star(92)

Fian saluted. ‘Yes, sir!’

‘Maybe I should start hitting you like Amalie hits Krath.’

When we arrived at Area 6, I paused to admire the musical instruments. They all looked like authentic copies of twentieth-century originals, except for Playdon’s drum kit. The set of wafer thin discs, each hovering in midair, were a blatant anachronism.

‘You look disapproving, Jarra,’ said Playdon. ‘I do have a perfect reproduction drum kit, but it’s very bulky so I couldn’t bring it to Ark.’

‘I understand the problem, sir.’

Fian and I went into our own room, and I sorted through the meagre selection of clothes I had with me. ‘I don’t really have any party clothes.’

‘I don’t think many people will dress up for this,’ said Fian. ‘Why don’t you wear the top that says you tagged me, and the trousers you’re wearing now? Underneath, you can wear that black lacy thing with the …’

‘It doesn’t matter what I wear underneath. No one will be able to tell.’

‘I’ll know what’s underneath.’ Fian grinned. ‘I can distract myself from the awful music by thinking how I’ll undress you and …’

‘I’m shocked. Deltans should be content with just holding hands.’

‘I’m a very bad Deltan.’ Fian proved this by watching me get changed before speaking again. ‘Playdon said something interesting earlier. You didn’t have a problem after being injured rescuing Solar 5, but you did this time. Any idea why?’

I led the way out into the main room. It was deserted now. The band must have gone to set up their equipment for the gig.

‘I was in a lot of pain both times,’ I said, ‘but the situation was different. This time, it was my suit hurting me, and I have to wear a suit every time I step on a dig site. Last time, the solar super storm induced an electrical current in old wiring and that interacted with the shields of Solar 5. Solar super storms only happen about once in five hundred years, so I’ll never be in that situation again.’

Fian nodded. ‘This must be the most eventful year in Earth’s history. A solar super storm, a crashing spaceship, and now aliens.’

I stopped. ‘Chaos take it!’

‘Jarra?’

I ignored him. I had to focus on my glimmer of an idea before it escaped. The solar super storm and the crashing spaceship happening at the same time wasn’t a coincidence, because one caused the other. What if the alien sphere arriving wasn’t a coincidence either? Stasis boxes somehow came into this too. People headed to other worlds in Exodus century, leaving farewell messages in stasis boxes. Eventually the power ran out, stasis fields failed, and …

I ran back into our room and groped in my bag, my fingers seeking the curved shape of my Military lookup. I’d just been sorting through my clothes, so of course it was right at the bottom. I found it at last, turned it on, and madly entered codes. Major Tar Cameron answered my call.

‘Command Support,’ she said.

I saw her expression of polite efficiency take on a frosty edge as her eyes flickered downwards. She could obviously see the top I was wearing, and she didn’t approve of me calling when I wasn’t in uniform. Didn’t the idiot woman realize I was with a whole crowd of civilians and had to hide the fact I was in the Military?

‘I need to speak to the Colonel urgently.’

Major Tar Cameron gave me the fake smile of someone who plans to be as unhelpful as possible. ‘I’m afraid the Colonel is …’

The image on my lookup suddenly changed to show Commander Leveque. ‘Nia is at Echo base with the Attack team, and the Colonel’s asleep, so I’m in command here, Jarra. Should I wake Colonel Torrek?’

Oh chaos, the Colonel was asleep. I hesitated. Fian was silently watching me with a panicky look on his face. Maybe I should have explained to him first, and spent a while thinking things over. My idea could be totally wrong, but …

‘Wake the Colonel,’ I said. ‘I’d better explain to both of you.’

There was a delay of several minutes before Colonel Torrek appeared, neatly dressed in uniform but looking rather bleary eyed. ‘Go ahead, Jarra.’

‘Sir, the alien sphere appeared only weeks after a solar super storm. My theory is that was no coincidence. Suppose the aliens came to Earth a very long time ago. Planet First has found two neo-intelligent races and put their planets under quarantine to allow them to continue their natural development. The aliens did something similar, leaving the sphere hidden somewhere in Sol system, and a device on Earth that we could use to communicate with it when we reached an appropriate level of technology.’