Free Earth Star by Janet Edwards

by themselves,’ I continued, ‘and made the most of being alone in the dark until the teacher caught them and sent them home early in disgrace. It was the best school trip ever.’
    We went into our quarters, and I checked the time on the Military lookup attached to my forearm. ‘It’s 17:30 now. We’ll need to change into …’
    I broke off as I heard a faint, sad, chiming noise. I’d abandoned my civilian lookup on the table when I changed into my Military uniform, and it was crying for attention. I went over to take a look. ‘Oh chaos!’
    ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fian.
    ‘Mail from Candace. I forgot I was supposed to call her at 18:00 hours.’
    ‘Well, you’ve still got time to …’
    ‘18:00 hours Earth Africa time, Fian! I’m over six hours late!’
    Candace is my ProMum. When I became a ward of Hospital Earth as a baby, they allocated me a ProMum and a ProDad, to be mine for two hours a week for life. Candace was still mine for two hours a week, but my ProDad gave up on me after the fights about the school history club trips to dig sites.
    I was always interested in pre-history, so I signed up to spend four weeks on the New York Fringe Dig Site when I was only 11. I’d done my gold safety award, but the club were worried about my age and insisted on my ProParents giving their consent.
    I talked Candace into agreeing, but my ProDad called up one image of the New York ruins on his lookup and absolutely refused. I explained all about New York Fringe being much safer than New York Main Dig Site, but he still said little kids couldn’t go somewhere so dangerous and maybe when I was 16 he’d consider it. I was spitting furious, so I forged his consent and went anyway. He ignored me for weeks after the argument, so he didn’t find out until the day before we came back.
    After that, he tried to get me thrown out of the history club, but was outvoted because I’d got glowing reports for my work on the dig site and Candace and the teacher were on my side. The next summer, I signed up to go to London Fringe Dig Site with the club. There was another huge argument, and my ProDad said he washed his hands of the whole business and me as well. I told him he could nuke off, and I’ve hardly seen him since then. When I got my leg fried, he showed up at the hospital, but only because he wanted to keep getting paid for being my ProDad.
    Anyway, I didn’t care what my ProDad thought, if he thought anything at all, about me vanishing when Alien Contact grabbed me. Candace was a different matter. She really cared about me, and I didn’t want her to be worried.
    ‘I’d better call Candace right away, it’s past ten o’clock at night in Earth Europe and …’ I stopped. ‘Well, I’ll call her right after I change out of Military uniform. It wouldn’t be easy to explain why I’m suddenly a Military Captain.’
    ‘You do that,’ said Fian, ‘and I’ll send Playdon a mail to reassure him the Military understand you can’t portal off world.’
    I grabbed my civilian lookup, and dashed into the bedroom to change before calling Candace. She’d probably be busy or in bed by now, but if she didn’t answer I could leave a message.
    She did answer, and frowned anxiously at me. ‘Jarra! Are you all right? I’ve only known you miss your appointment with me twice, and both times you’d been taken to hospital.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t call. We had to pack our bags and move in a hurry. There wasn’t any warning and …’
    ‘So long as you’re all right.’ She smiled, and looked her usual calm and relaxed self again. ‘Why has your class moved? You’d only just arrived at Eden Dig Site.’
    ‘It was a complete shock,’ I said. ‘I can’t explain the reason. It’s classified.’
    ‘Ah.’ She nodded. ‘Like when they evacuated New York Fringe?’
    I remembered the time she meant. Some buried stasis box must have had a containment field failure and released some