Janet Edwards: Earth Flight

‘I’m sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s my own fault, Jarra. I should have told my parents weeks ago, but I kept delaying, waiting for a good moment. Stupid of me. There was never going to be a good moment to tell two prudish Deltans that their son’s girlfriend was joining a clan from Zeus, capital planet of sexually permissive Beta sector.’

He sounded surprisingly calm about it, but I still felt horribly guilty. Fian had worked so hard to get his parents to accept me despite my Handicap, and now I was causing yet more trouble by joining a Betan clan. Fian’s home planet, Hercules, was one of the strictest in conservative Delta sector. His parents were dubious about moral standards here on Earth, let alone those of notorious Beta sector.

‘Changing my mind about joining my clan would be awkward now it’s been reported on the newzies,’ I said, ‘but …’

‘I’m not letting you change your mind just because my parents won’t approve,’ said Fian. ‘You try and hide it, but I know you desperately want to have a family.’

I hated admitting it, even to myself, but that was perfectly true. I’d been portalled to Earth at birth to save my life, and my parents had handed me over to be raised as a ward of Hospital Earth. I’d grown up in their residences, hating the unknown parents who’d rejected me for being imperfect, but eventually I tried to contact them and was grazzed to find out they were Military. Moving to Earth would have meant abandoning their careers and wrecking the lives of my older brother and sister, so they had more excuse than most parents who abandoned their Handicapped babies, but …

Well, I still had a mess of conflicting powerful emotions about the parents who dumped me as a baby. The parents who I’d called months ago when I was on New York Dig Site and they were in far off Kappa sector. The parents who’d wanted to come to Earth to see me, but died before they could do it. I’d recorded my only call to them. One day, maybe, I’d be able to face replaying that conversation. One day, but not yet.

I thought I’d lost the chance of having a family forever when my parents died, but now their Betan clan was welcoming me as a member. I could never portal away from Earth, never visit the clan hall on Zeus, but I would still be part of one of the huge extended families of a Betan clan. I was staggeringly, unbelievably, bewilderingly lucky. Every kid in the residences run by Hospital Earth, whether they were in Nursery, Home or Next Step, dreamed of something amaz like this. It would have been incredibly hard to give up that dream, even for Fian.

‘I’d better call my parents now.’ Fian reached for his lookup.

By Deltan rules of behaviour, a couple of 18-year-olds on their second Twoing contract were barely allowed to hold hands, so Fian’s parents mustn’t see us together wearing only sleep suits. I pulled on a robe and headed for the door. ‘I’ll go and shower.’

Our pre-history class was spending the year excavating the ruins of the ancient cities of Earth, and staying in a series of basic dig site accommodation domes. That meant there were only three bathrooms for twenty-nine students, so I had to wait in a queue to shower. When I got back to our room, Fian was standing by the bed, his lookup discarded beside him. I didn’t like the grim expression on his face.

‘How bad was it?’ I asked.

‘Very bad.’ Fian hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘My father ordered me to break our Twoing contract or he’ll disown me.’

I had a sick, nervous feeling in my stomach. ‘I could ask my clan to postpone the ceremony.’

‘He isn’t just angry about you joining the clan, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘I’ve always been a bit … careful when talking to my parents about how we met. My parents thought I’d known you were Handicapped all along, but now my father’s somehow found out what really happened.’

I stared down at my hands for a moment. I’d done the unthinkable at the start of this year, pretended I was a norm and lied my way into a pre-history course run by University Asgard in Gamma sector, instead of joining a course run by University Earth. I still felt guilty about the lies and …

‘He’s found out we’re sharing a room as well,’ Fian continued.

‘Oh nuke!’

‘He said a scheming ape girl had seduced me into a Twoing contract, and ordered me to dump the throwback right away.’

I fought to stay calm despite the insults. ‘He was understandably angry when he said that.’

‘I told my father that you’d apologized for lying, and I’d chosen to forgive you. I told him I was a very badly-behaved Deltan, and sharing a room was my idea not yours. Then I told him I’d no intention of breaking our Twoing contract and he could nuke off! He ended the call then.’

Well of course he had. Fian’s father would never tolerate his son swearing at him. ‘Fian, I don’t want you falling out with your father because of me.’

‘It’s not just because of you; it’s because of a whole list of things.’ Fian’s face flushed with anger. ‘He spent years mocking me for wanting to study history instead of science, and saying what a disappointment I was compared to my brilliant older sister. His method of subtly breaking the news to my mother that he didn’t plan to renew their term marriage contract was to put their house up for sale. Then there was the way he reacted when he discovered an alien probe had arrived at Earth and I’d been drafted into the Military to help the Alien Contact programme.’

‘That was a bit …’

Fian didn’t give me the chance to finish my sentence. ‘I actually thought he’d be impressed by that. His son playing a leading role in the first contact between humanity and an alien civilization! My mother was proud of me, but my father just started ranting on about how I should have nothing to do with the Military because of some ancient family grudge.’

Fian had been on bad terms with his father for years. The big question was … ‘Did you talk to your mother too?’

Fian nodded. ‘My father had already called her and told her everything. She said I should ignore him because he’s too cold-blooded to understand people with real emotions. She said all that matters to her is that we’re happy together.’

I had a dizzy moment of relief. I should have guessed Fian’s mother would react that way. She wasn’t just a born romantic, but determined to take the opposite side to his father in every argument these days. Fian’s parents were at the end of one of the standard twenty-five year term marriages for people who planned to have children but didn’t want to sign up to an unlimited full marriage. Fian’s mother wanted to renew the term contract, his father didn’t, and the final weeks of the relationship were descending into open warfare.

Fian was deeply upset by his parents breaking up, and I’d no idea how to help him. I’d only ever had a ProMum and a ProDad, paid by Hospital Earth to spend two hours a week with each of their ten ProChildren, and that was nothing like having real full-time parents. Candace was a wonderful ProMum to me, but I had to make appointments to meet her, and I’d hardly seen my ProDad since our big fight when I was 12 years old.

I sighed. ‘When I first agreed to join my clan, I never thought anyone except the two of us would know or care about it.’

Fian hugged me. ‘We’re famous now, and that changes everything.’

By the time Fian and I arrived in the hall for breakfast, the rest of the class had already set out the flexiplas tables and chairs. The wall vid was on, showing Gamma Sector News since most of the class were from star systems in that sector. I recognized a horribly familiar vid sequence and groaned. With my worries about Fian’s parents, I’d forgotten today was 1 June, the anniversary of Earth Flight.