Hollydoon (HOL-ly doon) (pop. 1,677): largely Agricultural village in northwest Nuath; suffered particularly harsh ravages by Faxon’s forces
I spend the zipper ride to Hollydoon reading the file Crevan Erc gave me—a much better use of my time than replaying that brush of Brady’s fingers along my cheek.
The file contains a complete rundown of the Populist Party’s long and short-term goals, along with loads of carefully reasoned arguments that Populist supporters can use to convince the unconverted. Like:
“Point out the absurdity of an intellectually superior race clinging to an antiquated system of hereditary rulers. Though Nuathans claim to be more rational and enlightened than the Duchas, they are well ahead of us in this area. All historically important Earth monarchies were abolished generations ago in favor of representative governments elected by their people.”
I’ll use that one the first chance I get—maybe tonight, to my parents. My mother acts like the girl singlehandedly brought Faxon down, but the Populists claim what I’ve believed all along: that it was simply the idea of an heir to Sovereign Leontine, not Emileia herself, that motivated the Resistance to finally throw off Faxon’s yoke. A paper cutout would have been as effective if enough people rallied around it.
When the zipper pulls into Hollydoon, I reluctantly put my reader away. I plan to cut through the main square again until I hear cheering. The Sovereign must still be here. Quickly adjusting my trajectory, I make a wide loop around the village center. If my parents spot me, they’ll expect me to join the adoring crowd, which is the last thing I want to do.
Thinking back over everything I learned tonight as I walk home, I experience the same excitement I used to feel last year, carrying messages for the Resistance. Knowing I was doing my part to undermine Faxon. That proves I’m doing the right thing, joining the Populists. And to think that Brady’s been talking me up to Crevan Erc for weeks! Is it possible I mean more to him than I’ve dared to—?
A sound from the sheep byre interrupts that interesting speculation. Peeking inside, I see Adina frantically scooping water out of an overly full trough and pouring it back into the receptacle above her head.
“Hey, Sprout, whatcha doing?”
She turns to me in obvious alarm, then relaxes slightly. “Kira, can you help me? I taught Nelly to open the water valve herself because the timer keeps glitching but she must have done it over and over! If Mum and Dad find out she wasted water, I’m afraid they’ll get rid of the whole flock.”
Not a baseless fear, given how strictly rationed that precious commodity is. If we run short of our own drinking and cooking water because of the sheep, our parents will be furious.
“It only overflowed a little.” She points to a patch of damp straw beneath the trough. “So if we can just put most of this back in the supply tank…”
I pick up a second empty container and start helping. With two of us scooping, it doesn’t take long to restore the trough to its usual level.
“I can’t believe you managed to train a sheep to do something like that.” I glance at the long lever she’d attached to the release valve. “I thought they were really stupid?”
“Not as smart as I hoped, obviously.” Adina quickly unfastens the lever from the valve. “There. Now Nelly can’t do it again. You won’t tell Mum and Dad, will you?”
“No,” I promise. “Why didn’t you go with them into the village to listen to you-know-who?”
“I did, but when it got so late I asked if I could go home early to check on the sheep. Good thing, too.”
A shaft of alarm goes through me. “You walked back all by yourself? In the dark?”
“You do it all the time,” Adina points out. “What’s the big deal?”
“You’re a lot—” I break off. Because not only did I do the same when I was thirteen, it was a lot more dangerous back then, with Faxon’s goons still roaming around.
“Sorry.” I force a lighter tone. “Guess I still think of you as younger than you really are now. Probably always will. Big sister privilege.”
She laughs. “It’s good to know you’ve got my back, Kira, whether I need it or not. Guess we should go in and figure out dinner, huh? You want first shower tonight?”
“Oh, I got one at…um, after practice.” To cover my near-slip, I quickly add, “Anyway, you’d better get yours before Mum and Dad get back or they’ll want to know how you got so wet.”
Once inside, Adina goes to shower and change while I check the recombinator to see what our dinner options are. Not many, but more than last night. I’m heading toward our bedroom to ask Adina what she’s in the mood for when Mum and Dad walk in.
“Oh, Kira, you should have been there!” my mother gushes. “Sovereign Emileia is even more charming in person than in her vids. I can’t get over how much she looks like her mother, Galena. And she has the same remarkable green eyes as Sovereign Leontine.”
I fake a smile. “That’s nice. I guess the crowd didn’t bother you too much?”
Dad gives her shoulder a little squeeze. “She did extremely well, didn’t you, dear?”
“Yes, I was fine,” she agrees happily. Which means she’d be fine attending my games, too—if she really wanted to come.
“So, did the Sovereign say anything worth hearing, or did she just look pretty and act charming?” I blurt without thinking, everything I heard at the meeting and read afterward still fresh in my mind.
Mum’s smile evaporates and Dad gives me a quick, quelling head shake.
“Perhaps if you had come with us this evening, you’d feel differently about her now,” he suggests. “I thought she expressed herself extremely well.” He glances at the screen I’ve pulled up on the recombinator. “I take it you haven’t eaten either? Why don’t you put something together for all of us?”
I select a vegetable and synth chicken casserole I like but when I start to program it in, Mum stops me.
“I know it’s late, but let’s make dinner the old-fashioned way tonight.”
“What? Why?” I turn to look at her in surprise. “It’s been great having a working recombinator again after the way Faxon randomly cut our power. Things were finally starting to get back to normal before—”
At Dad’s frown I break off but Mum’s already wearing her stubborn look. “Sovereign Emileia has good reason to ask everyone to conserve while our Scientists look for a solution to our energy shortage. We should do our part. A food recombinator is a luxury, and one we can comfortably live without.”
“I doubt cooking the old-fashioned way uses any less power—and it takes forever,” I argue. I’m starving, what with caidpel practice, then being too excited after the meeting to eat anything.
“It will be good practice,” Dad says. “Recombinators are only one of the conveniences we’ll have to learn to do without.”
I blink at him, confused. “Huh? Why?”
“We have some rather, ah, exciting news. We’d planned to tell you and Adina over dinner.”
“News?” I ask suspiciously. “What kind of news?”
Mum puts a gentle hand on my shoulder, her eyes pleading—which doesn’t reassure me at all. “Please don’t be angry, Kira, but…the Sovereign was extremely persuasive tonight. She told us such wonderful things about Earth, and about her own hometown of Jewel, in a place called Indiana. I’m sure you and Adina will love it there. Why, you might even become friends with the Sovereign herself!”
I jump backwards, feeling as if she just slapped me in the face. “What?” I shriek so loudly the people in the next farmhouse over probably hear me. “You’re crazy! I’m not leaving Nuath! And I sure as efrin don’t want to become friends with that presumptuous little child-Queen.”
“Now, Kira,” Mum cautions me, “you know you mustn’t say things like that. And there’s no guarantee we’ll be allowed to live in Jewel itself. Still—”
“No!” I shake my head fiercely. “We can’t go. At least, I can’t! Our team just made the playoffs, remember? They need me. Believe it or not, I’m actually an important player. They…they don’t even play caidpel on Earth!”
But Mum’s looking stubborn again. “Conserving Nuath’s power for future generations is far more important than winning games, Kira. You need to reexamine your priorities.”
“My priorities? What about yours? I’m starting to think those Mind Healers did worse things to your brain than Faxon did. How—?”
“Kira!” With two quick steps, Dad gets in my face. “Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that, after what she’s been through. You’ve seen the statistics on the feeds, we all have. Nuath’s power can only be extended if we start the emigration process now, during this launch window. When the Sovereign called for volunteers, your mother and I agreed it was our patriotic duty to step forward. We booked berths on the Horizon for all four of us.”
“Patriotic—!”
Adina hurries into the kitchen, still tying the top of her tunic. “What’s all the shouting about?”
“Mum and Dad want to haul us off to Earth!” I tell her before they can answer. “We don’t even get a say, apparently.”
“Really?” She looks to Mum and Dad for confirmation. “We’re all going to Earth? Cool!”
I glare at her. “It’s not cool! Do you really want to leave all your friends? The farm? The sheep?”
That last word finally dims Adina’s smile. Determined to at least get my sister on my side, I press my point.
“This won’t be some sightseeing trip, like a school visit to the Central Pillar. This would be permanent. We’d have to say goodbye to everything and everyone we know—our whole world. Pretend to be Duchas for the rest of our lives. And for what?” I demand, turning back to my father. “As a favor to the new Sovereign? Mum may believe everything will be better with the Royals in charge again, even for us lowly Ags, but that doesn’t make it true. She’s stuck in the past and you know it.”
Mum lets out a little gasp but I’m too upset at the idea of leaving to think how insensitive I sound. Then I notice Dad’s expression. Even before he speaks, I know I’ve crossed an invisible line.
“To your room, Kira. Now.”
“Fine.”
Tears of fury pricking my eyelids, I stride from the kitchen. If the door to my room were slammable, like the ones I’ve seen on Earth television feeds, I’d slam it. The little hiss as it slides shut doesn’t make nearly as strong a statement. Probably the only thing I’d like about Earth.
Not that I plan to go. If I can’t talk my parents out of this ridiculous idea, I’ll find another way to stay on Mars. Everything I care about is here. Especially now.
Five minutes later, Mum taps on the bedroom door. “Kira? Dinner’s ready. I realized you must be very hungry, so I had the recombinator make that casserole you selected. I’m sorry you’re upset, but please join the rest of us so we can talk.”
I want to refuse, but it would be stupid to waste this opportunity to convince them they’re making the wrong decision while there’s still time to change it. Besides, I’m starving.
“Fine. I’ll be out in a minute.” I take several deep breaths, tamping down my totally-justified outrage so I can argue—rationally—why moving to Earth would be a terrible idea for all of us.
Which I do, all through dinner.
“What will happen to our farm if we leave?” I ask at one point. “It’s been more productive these past few months than I can ever remember.”
“That’s why I expect the Murraghs will be happy to add it to their own holdings, as their farm shares a border with ours,” Dad replies. “We plan to talk to them tomorrow.”
Mum nods and I glower at both of them before launching my next volley. “Did you know my first playoff game will earn me—us—fifty sochar? If we win, the next one will pay twice that. Only last month Dad mentioned wanting an aquaponic agbot to speed up the harvest. Those extra credits would more than pay for one. We’d be able to eat a lot better, too. Maybe add more crops to our rotation.”
But my parents don’t budge. Mum is a hundred percent convinced they’re doing the right thing and Dad will do anything to make her happy these days.
By morning, I’m no less determined to stay in Nuath than I was last night. The moment I wake up I start rehearsing more arguments, like how it will affect Adina’s education to attend a massively inferior Duchas school instead of her current one here. I’ll bring up caidpel again, too, and how rewarding it’s been for me—though not the Populist angle, obviously.
“Efrin,” I mutter, spotting my school tunic crumpled in the corner of the bedroom. “I totally forgot to clean this last night.” My dirty caidpel uniform is still stuffed in my bag, too.
“Do it now,” Adina suggests, yawning. “There’s time before school.”
Throwing on my tattered old robe, I hang my burgundy tunic and leggings for school and my green and yellow caidpel uniform in the ionic shower on our way to the kitchen for breakfast. When my sister and I leave for school half an hour later, my class outfit is as clean and wrinkle-free as Adina’s pale peach one and my caidpel uniform is neatly folded in my bag.
“Is it true they don’t have ionic sanitizers or food recombinators on Earth?” she asks as we walk the half mile to the village school.
I refrain from snapping that it doesn’t matter since I have no intention of going there. “Not outside the Echtran compounds, according to my Earth Studies class last year. No anti-grav transport, either. The Duchas are centuries behind us, technologically. Practically primitives. Why Mum and Dad—”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad.” Adina, ever the optimist, grins up at me. “There are supposed to be thousands and thousands of different kinds of animals there. I can’t wait to see some of them. Ooh! Do you think Mum and Dad will let us get a…a dog, I think they’re called? Some Duchas keep them as pets.”
“Let some animal live right in the house with us? Ew. I hope not.” I’ve read about that weird Duchas custom. It sounds totally unsanitary to me.
“I think it would be great.”
I slant a skeptical look at my sister. “Do you honestly want to move to Earth? What about your friends here? What about the sheep?”
“Okay, yeah, I’ll miss my friends. And the sheep, but it’s not like they let me keep more than a few at a time anyway, and never for very long. If I could have my own dog, though…”
Watching the animation in her face as she continues to chatter about what an adventure it will be, my spirits sink further. If I can’t even convince my little sister we’d be better off staying in Nuath, what possible chance will I have with our parents?
I don’t mention our potential move to any of my friends at school, though I’m sure Adina’s telling everyone she knows. Maybe, if I can’t talk my parents out of this crazy idea, I can convince my caidpel coach, or Brady, or even Crevan Erc himself to come up with a way to keep me in Nuath. I refuse to assume I’m leaving until I’ve exhausted all of my options.
At lunch, I briefly consider messaging Brady. Then, remembering his almost-tender goodbye last night, I worry that might seem clingy, since I’ve never messaged him directly before. Better to wait till I see him at practice.
Today’s is in Bailecuinn, northeast of Hollydoon. About twenty minutes in, Brady and I happen to be next to each other between drills so I grab my chance to tell him about my parents’ horrible surprise last night.
He quirks an eyebrow at me, which weirdly makes him look even more handsome than usual. “Did they buy into the Sovereign’s whole ‘Nuath’s running out of power’ bit? We suspect she—or her handlers—are just using that as a scare tactic to manipulate people and concentrate power further. Same kind of stuff Faxon used to do, so everyone would be afraid to oppose him.”
“You mean the power reserves aren’t really that low? They’re faking all that data?”
“Crevan thinks they might be. He says it’s too coincidental that the very groups he hopes to benefit most are the first ones signing up for Earth. I saw the first two Earth-bound manifests myself—not a single Royal on them.”
I didn’t realize the Sovereign’s new campaign was mainly targeting the lower fines, but it makes sense. They’d be the easiest ones to convince they’ll be better off on Earth.
“Do you think—?” I begin, but Coach’s shout cuts me off.
“Kira! Brady! We’re not here to socialize, we’ve got a playoff to prepare for. Take your positions!”
We don’t get another chance to talk until after practice ends.
“You were right earlier,” I tell him as the team heads for the zipper station after turning in our sticks. “My folks are convinced it’s our patriotic duty to emigrate to Earth—but I totally don’t want to go. Do you…do you think Crevan Erc might be willing to help me stay in Nuath? He seems to think I can be useful here.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Brady promises softly. “He has a lot of connections—more than most people realize. Bet he can manage something.”
His confidence is contagious. During my short zipper ride home, my spirits are higher than they’ve been all day.