Free Ellie Quin Book 3: Beneath the Neon Sky by Alex Scarrow

featureless landscape at an unexciting thirty miles an hour. Inside the cockpit, Ellie steered the vehicle in a relentless line, straight south.
    ‘So, what do you think?’ asked Ellie.
    ‘Of what?’
    ‘I dunno, everything.’
    ‘Your family are nice, Ellie,’ Jez admitted a little enviously. She felt like blurting out that she had never known hers and that she would have given anything to have had a childhood, to have had a family just like Ellie’s.
    ‘I really like them,’ Jez added after a few moments. To Jez they seemed like a different breed, almost a different species, to the sheeple that filled New Haven. They seemed more alive, more alert, more friendly…more going on inside them than the dittoheads back in the city. She wondered if she were Ellie whether she would have had the strength of purpose to leave such a warm, embracing environment behind.
    ‘What do you think of the farm?’
    ‘Bigger than I had imagined,’ Jez replied. ‘I was expecting something a little smaller, crumpled and battered I suppose. It’s a good home Ellie, you’re lucky to have that.’
    They drove on in silence for a moment before Jez added, ‘I can see why you’re not a big fan of those damned tub-thingys, though.’
    ‘Yes, the curse of my life, those things were. I’m glad Dad’s changing the crop over at last.’
    ‘Kind of gross those gourd things, aren’t they? I got to say, I nearly couldn’t eat supper last night after I saw your Mum pull one of those things kicking and twisting out of the ground, and then butcher it right there in front of me in the kitchen.’
    ‘Hmm, yes, but then that’s natural food for you I suppose. A long time ago, people used to actually eat dead
animals
.’
    ‘Eeeeww,’ said Jez pulling a face. ‘That’s utterly grotesque, thank you Ellie-girl. All I can say is thank crud for protein-paste.’ Jez looked out at the barren terrain ahead of them. ‘So…you’ve been to this weather station before then?’
    ‘Oh yeah, quite a few times. Dad used to take us kids there. It’s great to explore and really fascinating to see how colonists used to live here in the early days.’
    ‘Do you know much about that?’ asked Jez.
    ‘What the early days?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Sure. I studied colonial history for one of my citizenship modules. It was rough back then Jez, really rough. They had to make it on their own. There were no regular trade routes delivering essentials. Whatever they needed to survive, they had to produce themselves.’
    ‘A bit like your family.’
    ‘Maybe, but they had it much worse. They didn’t have a city they could run to if things went wrong.’
    ‘True,’ replied Jez.
    ‘It sometimes amazes me how so many people can allow themselves to become totally dependent on others to provide what they need,’ said Ellie after a while. ‘Take all those people living in New Haven, living on top of each other, all needing oxygen, water and food. But what would they do if, just for a few days, the food, the water and the oxygen supplies stopped arriving?’
    ‘I dunno. They’d be alright for a few days, I guess. I’m sure the city has stocks of essential things put aside, just in case something like that happened.’
    ‘You think so? But what if a few days turned into a few weeks?’
    Jez thought about it for a moment. ‘Hmmm, they’d be all in deep hooey, I guess.’
    ‘Yes. It’s something I’ve thought about since moving to New Haven….how vulnerable everyone is in there. And I wonder if it’s the same on other planets? How many people across Human Space know how to do something as simple as find water? Or grow food?’
    ‘If they’re anything like me, not many,’ replied Jez. Ellie had a point. Even here on this frontier world where the planet had yet to be properly tamed and the people living here were supposed to be of a tougher sort, resilient, capable of looking after themselves - the vast majority of citizens crammed into New Haven wouldn’t