Free Earth 2788 by Janet Edwards Page B

Art of
Language from University Artemis, and I was a good vid script writer, but most of
the Artemis clans who made vids were members of the Breck alliance. Their clan
leaders had been in the alliance council meeting, where I was the centre of a
storm that threatened the unity of the alliance. They’d never give me a job
after that.
    In fact, getting
any sort of job would be desperately hard. In Beta sector almost every business
was owned by a clan. They all employed their own clan members in preference to
anyone else, second choice was members of clans in their alliance, and then
members of other respectable clans. The clanless were only employed as a last
resort, because everyone assumed they must have done something dreadful to be
disowned by their clan.
    I’d never had to
worry about money before. I wasn’t just paid a generous amount as a script
writer; I could ask for help from the clan funds as well if there was any
unexpected emergency. Now though …
    All I had was my
share of the money that Ardreath, Lolmack, and I had in our joint credit
account. That might last for two or three months if I was very careful, but
what would I do after that? I was vaguely aware that it was possible to get a
subsistence grant if you had no other income, but I didn’t know how much it was
or how you claimed it.
    I remembered
Lolmack’s stories of the orphanage on Janus. My guess was that subsistence
grants would be exactly like that orphanage, the absolute grudging minimum
provision given with as much humiliation and bullying as possible, because
things like subsistence grants and orphanages were only for the clanless. Any
clan with a shred of pride cared for its own members rather than let them ask
for help elsewhere.
    “Take this.” The
doctor held out a glass of water and a tablet. “It will help you sleep.”
    I didn’t need to
sleep. What I needed was my lookup, and there was an obvious way to get it. “I’d
rather have some juice. I think there was a carton left earlier. I’ll get it.”
    I found the
carton, collected two glasses from the food dispenser, and filled them both
with juice. I carefully put my tablet in my mouth between my teeth and my
cheek, drank from one of the glasses, and swallowed the juice but not the
tablet.
    The doctor
smiled, apparently totally satisfied. “You’d better go and lie down now. Which
bedroom would you like?”
    I yawned,
covering my mouth with my hand for a moment. “Do they both have this dreadfully
old-fashioned glittery decor?”
    The doctor went
over to open a bedroom door and look inside. “This one has, but it’s a very
nice shade of delicate pink.”
    The tablet was
in the palm of my hand now. “I hate pink. What’s the other one like?”
    The doctor went
to check the second room. I dunked the tablet into the untouched glass of
juice, and rubbed it between my fingers. I felt it soften, but it stubbornly
refused to dissolve.
    “Blue,” the
doctor reported.
    “I prefer blue.”
I yawned again. “Can you put my bags in that one please?”
    The doctor
collected the key fob that controlled the set of hover luggage, clicked it, and
the bags floated into the air and followed her into the bedroom. I had another
desperate attempt to make the tablet dissolve in the juice, and this time I
succeeded. I peered into the depths of the juice. Fortunately it was bright
red, so any remaining fragments of tablet were invisible.
    I left the full
glass of juice on the table, and carried my own half-empty one into the
bedroom, moving slowly as if I was already half asleep. The doctor met me, and
hastily took the glass from my hand, putting it on the table next to the bed.
    “Shall I find
you a sleep suit?” she asked, gesturing at the hover luggage.
    “No, I … I’ll
lie down now, and change later.”
    I stretched out
on the bed, and closed my eyes. There were a couple of minutes of total
silence, followed by what I thought was the sound of the doctor leaving the
room.
    I opened my