doolegar (DOO-luh-gahr): despondency; depression
I’m too depressed to say much over dinner that night, but nobody seems to notice. Mum, Dad and Adina are all talking about what they’ve read about the various types of Earth villages, towns and cities and the occupations likely to be most needed in them.
“With our farming experience, we’ll certainly be well suited for Jewel.” Mum beams around at us. “Though I suppose I can be happy elsewhere if we’re not selected. According to today’s vid update, there will be even more competition than I’d anticipated.”
“Our chances should still be good, Deirdra,” Dad assures her. “We’re well known as staunch Royalists and the fact you knew Consort Galena personally is bound to weigh in your favor. But as you say, either way we’ll find a place to make home—and we’ll still be able to visit Jewel. There are hundreds of farming towns in that region. We’ll settle in one of those, if not in Jewel itself.”
I know I should start paying attention now that my fate is sealed, but at the moment I can’t bring myself to care.
Not until I’m getting ready for bed do I bother to check my messages—and nearly drop my omni when I see one from Crevan Erc. Heart pounding with renewed hope, I pull it up—only to have my hopes dashed again.
Sorry to hear you won’t be remaining in Nuath, as you would have been a valuable advocate for us. We will consider an alternate role for you on Earth if a significant portion of our people emigrate there. Should such an opportunity arise, you will hear from one of our Echtran operatives. Best of luck in the future, Kira Morain.
—CE
I wonder if Brady told him how bummed I was tonight about Coach cutting me from the team. Efrin, he probably asked Crevan to message me, thinking I’d feel better if I thought I might still be useful to their cause somehow. Someday. Maybe.
Feeling dismissed, patronized and more depressed than ever, I crawl into bed and quietly cry myself to sleep.
Our last few days in Nuath are a blur as our preparations ramp up to a frenetic pace. The Murraghs agree to take over our farming operations and another family from the village comes to look at our house. We have to leave almost everything behind, of course. Among the hardest things to part with are my numerous caidpel trophies.
Just two days after being cut from the team, I have my last day of school. All my friends gather at lunchtime to say their goodbyes.
“I’m going to miss you so much, Kira.” Eileen has tears in her eyes. “Who else can I talk caidpel with at school and get pointers from? Nobody else gets it like you do. Now I’ll never make the co-ed team.”
“Sure you will. You’re really good.” I return her fierce hug with a lump in my throat, then turn to Ros and Bridgid, both waiting to say their own tearful goodbyes. The only thing that keeps me from crying, too, is pride. Because I never cry in front of anyone. Ever.
I have to remind myself of that again when Coach invites me to a post-practice party just outside Thiaraway, so my teammates can say their farewells. Though I’m pretty sure it was Leitis’s idea, I still appreciate it. Especially when Brady makes a point of walking with me to the zipper station afterward for a private goodbye.
“The team won’t be the same without you, you know.” That devastating grin that makes all the girls crush on him has a sad edge. “There’s no way Kinnard will improve to your level before next season. But I’m betting you end up doing something on Earth that’s a lot more important than caidpel.”
“What? Did Crevan say?”
He shakes his head. “I just told him you’d be better than anyone I can think of for any assignment, anywhere, now or in the future. But…I’ll miss you, Kira. A lot.”
“Um, yeah. Me, too.”
Brady leans in and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, just like on the zipper platform in Monaru, he brushes my cheek with his fingertips. Sudden tears threaten—again—and I turn quickly away.
“Bye, Brady. Keep in touch, okay?”
“I’ll try. Take care of yourself, Kira.”
Two hectic days later my family takes the zipper to Arregaith, where we’ll board the Horizon to leave Nuath forever. I spot Alan and his family near the back of our car and give a halfhearted wave. He enthusiastically waves back, grinning.
“Wow, look at how tall the buildings are,” Adina exclaims as we move into the outskirts of the town housing Nuath’s space port and support facilities. “I didn’t know Arregaith was this big.”
I realize Adina has never been this far from home before. Because I travel—traveled—so much for caidpel, I tend to forget that my family, like most Nuathans, hasn’t seen as much of the colony as I have.
“You should see Monaru, just a little farther south.” The zipper slows as it nears our station. “It’s twice the size of Thiaraway, though not as clean.”
“Even around the stadium?” Mum sounds surprised.
Oops. I never mentioned to them that I went into the city that day, for obvious reasons. “Oh, um, some of us went downtown after practice once for a bite to eat.”
To my relief the zipper stops then, sparing me the need to elaborate. I hate lying, even for a good cause—almost as much as I hate being lied to.
A uniformed woman near the edge of the platform steps forward as we all carry our bags off. “Those who have booked passage for this evening’s launch, please follow me.”
She holds her omni aloft and it projects a brilliant turquoise sphere above her head. That makes her easy to follow through a winding, maze-like path that finally opens out into an enormous open area at least a quarter of a mile across, ringed by an almost solid wall of towering, pinkish-gray buildings. Crouching in the very center is the Horizon, looking for all the world like an enormous black rock.
“Cool, huh?” Alan asks from just behind me.
I nod. I’ve only visited Arregaith for caidpel, never the actual space port, so this is my first time seeing one of our interplanetary ships, outside of pictures. It’s even bigger than I imagined.
“Please proceed to the processing center.” Our guide indicates a building a short distance away marked Main Passenger Terminal. “Good journey, everyone!” Her turquoise sphere winks off and she departs with a wave.
Official-looking hover vehicles of various types and sizes criss-cross the huge courtyard as we make our way to the terminal. Adina’s head whips from side to side as she tries to take everything in. As we enter the building, we’re greeted by a man in a silvery bodysuit and gray tunic.
“This way, please. We’re on a rather tight schedule.” He points across the large, high-ceilinged room to a long counter staffed by a dozen red-uniformed people.
Our group joins those already in line. With the Horizon booked almost to capacity, it takes the better part of an hour to process everyone. Everyone’s bags are electronically tagged and the larger ones loaded onto hover-carts to be taken directly to the ship. We keep our smaller bags with us.
My family finds four chairs together in the waiting area. At the far end, there’s a vidscreen streaming the Nuathan News Network’s main feed. I watch, hoping they’ll flash up the score of today’s playoff game in the sidebar. When they finally do, I groan. A week ago, the Ags were predicted to beat the Miners easily, but we’re currently trailing them 10-8. Even if we win, we won’t stand a chance against the Engineers next week. Because of me—not that I had a choice.
A chime sounds, then two more, in quick succession. “First call for boarding,” a pleasant voice announces from invisible speakers. “Passengers in A Group please proceed to embarkation area.”
My family is in D Group, the last one, which isn’t announced for another twenty minutes. “Come on, everyone.” Dad springs to his feet, his face now alight with an excitement that rivals Adina’s. “Time for our first space flight!”
When we’re finally shown to our quarters on the Horizon, I’m appalled. Families from the more prestigious fines—or with enough sochar to upgrade—have private cabins on the upper levels of the ship. Those at the bottom of the pecking order, like us, are consigned to Steerage, just above the engine room.
“Seriously? We’re sharing this one room with a dozen other families?” I drop my small bag next to the bigger one that’s already sitting on my assigned bunk. Between them, they contain everything I’m allowed to bring for a whole new life on Earth.
Dad frowns. “I don’t know why you’re surprised, Kira. We’ve known our accommodation assignment for days. The ship’s configuration was covered in the reading, complete with diagrams.”
“Guess I skimmed that bit,” I mumble.
I never did do any of the required reading. Until four days ago, I was still convinced I could get out of this trip. When I was finally forced to relinquish that hope, there’d been a million other time-sensitive things to do. Oh, well, I should have plenty of time to read on the way to Earth.
“It’s only four nights,” Adina reminds me, tossing her little duffel onto the bunk above mine. “It’ll be fun. Like a big sleepover.”
Trust Adina to find the fun in any situation, no matter how depressing.
“Yeah, right. All it’ll take is one or two snorers—”
“Come along, girls,” Mum interrupts. “We have less than fifteen minutes before we need to be seated and belted in for launch.”
Already a line is forming in front of the single lift to take people up one level to the Commons. I look around for stairs, but don’t see any.
Adina, practically bouncing with excitement, chatters nonstop. “Pol told me there’s a huge screen in the Commons so we can watch the takeoff. And we’ll be able to see Earth two whole days before we get there! I wonder if we’ll be able to tell the difference between the land and the oceans from space? In pictures, it looks really different from the surface of Mars…”
We manage to squeeze into the lift for its third trip up. It spits us out into a room twice the size of Steerage, filled with rows of chairs. The huge vidscreen Adina mentioned shows the launch area we left half an hour ago.
“File in, file in,” drones a bored-looking crewmember, gesturing us toward a row of chairs. “Find a seat and belt yourselves in. Liftoff in zero minus eight minutes.”
I follow Adina and our parents to the next open seats. Those of us from Steerage are way in the back, but at least we’re near the middle of our row. An announcement over the speakers instructs us all to fasten our safety harnesses. On the vidscreen, the friends and families of those traveling start frantically waving goodbye from the edges of the launch area.
No one from Hollydoon has come to see us off but Adina waves back anyway, too excited to sit still. When excitement at the prospect of my first space flight starts to well up inside me, too, I ruthlessly tamp it down. Because I am not okay with what we’re doing. Not by a long shot.
Shortly after the last passengers have belted themselves in, liftoff is announced. Though I can’t feel the ship moving, everything on the vidscreen slowly drops away. For a moment we’re looking at the smooth, crystalline walls of the shaft instead of people and buildings, then the vid switches to a camera below us and we see the launch area from above, rapidly growing smaller.
Abruptly, we emerge from the shaft and the outer surface of Mars appears below us. Up close, it looks even more hostile and lifeless than in pictures and news feeds. But then it’s not so close. The ship gathers speed and in barely a minute the curve of the horizon is visible…and then the whole planet.
Though it’s a well-known fact that the whole underground colony of Nuath is less than one one-hundred millionth of Mars’s volume, this vantage point forces a true understanding of how very insignificant a speck that is in the vastness of space. I stare at the slowly retreating, reddish-brown sphere, already aching for the small cavity inside that’s the only world I’ve ever known. That’s when it finally hits me, once and for all, that this is for real.
Like it or not, I’m on my way to Earth.