Jenna Starborn (6 page)

“Today the sunrise was glorious, after weeks and weeks of rain. I felt my heart lift with such energy that I was sure it would tug me with it into the heady atmosphere.... The luncheon meal was dull, but dinner was very good, and we all ate and talked with such gaiety that I almost felt giddy by the time the meal was over.... I have made three very good friends this month, and though none of them will ever replace Harriet, their companionship eases some of my loneliness, and that, I know, is something Harriet would have wished.... Today we received our grades for the semester. I was at the top of my class in nuclear energy, and even in mathematics my scores were respectable. After a week's holiday, I will begin classes in my new grade, thus beginning my fourth full year here at Lora Tech....”

Such were my comments for the next eight years, sometimes more in depth, seldom more emotional. I began to be—not happy, exactly, but content. This school was familiar to me, I knew my place and my abilities, and upon my graduation, I was offered a job as instructor. I had no other plans, no other place to go, and so I accepted, though a tiny, very quiet voice inside me made a faint protest. So much of the universe left to see and I willing to crouch in this one small corner for the whole of my existence! The calm years here at Lora Tech had made me placid, but they had not entirely subdued my passionate, wondering nature. Even as I lectured, and graded tests, and helped each new student make his or her shaky way up the ladder of knowledge, I found myself growing restless.

So it was that, when I turned twenty-four, I consulted the employment listings that the school kept for its upperclassmen. Lora Tech students were prized all over the Allegiance for their sound training and attention to detail, and there were many openings listed on the terminal. I paged through them carefully, but for one reason or another, few of them appealed to me. I did not want to work on a space-going liner; I had not enjoyed my one experience of interplanetary travel enough to want it to form the whole of my life. Nor was I interested in working at one of the large, impersonal plants that were set up on many of the commercial space routes. I was a small, quiet person; I would be lost in such a large environment. I needed something more intimate, yet not imposing, something that suited my skills
and
my personality.

At last I found it, the position that sounded perfect: There was a need for a generator tech at the outpost holding of an individual who owned property on a world called Fieldstar. I looked this up quickly on the StellarNet and discovered it to be a small, terraformed planet in the Kaybek system, far enough from the nearest sun to require independent energy sources, but successfully settled by a handful of commercial businesses and investor families. Once the planet's thin, poisonous atmosphere had been stabilized by science, its soil had been found to be rich enough to yield self-sustaining crops, while the real business of the planet (mining dubronium) went on. Each landholder was responsible for keeping his own property contained and powered up, so each holding was equipped with its own generator. At Thorrastone Park, a new Arkady Core Converter was the one requiring a knowledgeable tech. The planet was somewhat isolated, the advertisement warned, though the spaceport was adequate and there would be opportunities for any new employee to get off-planet for recreation.

I looked up. Ideal! I loved the Arkady converters, and I had no fear of being marooned on a lonely outpost with few compatriots about. On the contrary, after fourteen years on the crowded streets of Lora, I liked the idea of living somewhere quieter, less populated. Fieldstar was located centrally enough in the Allegiance shipping corridor that I could, if I wanted, take holidays at any of the great metropolitan centers of the universe, though I did not see that being a great attraction to me. I was not yearning for breathless frivolity now. Just something a little different.

I checked the listing again. It had been posted a few weeks ago, which indicated that it was not a popular offer. Most of my classmates and students would be looking for that colorful, spasmodic life that appealed to me so little. But this was good news for me; if the owners had had few applicants, they would be even more inclined to view my resume with favor.

Calling up the reply screen, I typed in my relevant information and posted my response before I could think about it too long. The instant my finger had left the “send” button, I felt my nerve fail me. Leave Lora! Leave my friends and my familiar, comfortable life! But I heard that small, much-ignored voice inside me say, “Yes,” very firmly, and so I went in to dinner with a great conflict of hope and terror raging inside my soul.

And hope and terror, dear Reeder, are exactly what are embattled in my heart right now. For I received today my response from the seneschal at Thorrastone Park on Fieldstar, and it was an offer of employment. The salary is small but adequate, and there is a commercial cruiser leaving in three weeks' time that will take me by a fairly direct route to my destination. I have turned in my resignation to the director of the academy, who has wished me well and already posted notice of my job opening.

I am leaving Lora, I am leaving my old life behind. What lies ahead of me may be as dull and uneventful as what has come so far, but I find myself hoping that there is to be the smallest bit of color and excitement in my life after all. I am ready for it.

T
horrastone Park on Fieldstar was a neat, pretty compound, well-kept and cared for, but somehow seeming to lack much real personality. I toured it in company with Mrs. Farraday, the seneschal, who took me out in a small hovercar the morning after my arrival.

“Here, now, this is the northernmost boundary of our grounds,” she was saying, bringing the little car into an awkward curl with the skittishness of one who did not often handle mechanical controls. She was a middle-aged, comfortably fleshed woman with curly brown hair and faded brown eyes. I had assessed her immediately as kind but not particularly forceful. “You can tell by the airlock mechanism, of course, but there is also the shimmer effect of the forcefield. Which I think is quite pretty, don't you?”

“Yes, quite lovely,” I murmured, and it was. The whole of Thorrastone Park—indeed, every similar holding on Fieldstar—was enclosed by just such an artificial wall, holding within the atmosphere necessary for breathing and the warmth required for life.

As my shuttle had, that very morning, brought me into the nearest spaceport, I had gazed out my window at a truly magical sight: the aerial landscape of Fieldstar, seeming to bloom all over with huge, golden, iridescent bubbles of light. The holdings were widely and irregularly spaced, and the random placement of the globes of light gave the planet a charming, artless look—at least from the air. On the ground, it was hard to overlook just how calculated existence was on this small world. The very air inside the domed spaceport and the protected grounds of Thorrastone Park felt stale and processed. This was definitely not a natural world.

Within hours after my arrival, Mrs. Farraday had offered to show me the grounds and I, quite curious about my new home, had accepted. I had only been able to form a guess as to the extent of Thorrastone Park, for Mrs. Farraday had mostly shown me the manor proper and its grounds; we had not investigated the mining area nor the buildings erected there. But they were visible from many vantages of the manor and its gardens, a dark cluster of small buildings and untidy phalanxes of scurrying workers.

“Do the house generators supply power for the entire compound, or do the mine generators perform that function?” I asked.

She had already explained to me how Thorrastone Park was governed by two sets of generators, and how, since the last tech had left, the mining supervisor had overseen the equipment at the manor. These house machines were the only ones I would have any responsibility for, unless some drastic disaster occurred on the mining fields; those generators had their own personnel.

“Actually, the house equipment controls the major forcefield, though the mine equipment can be used as backup,” she said. “The failsafe has never had to be used, but it is a comfort to know it is in place.”

“Indeed, yes,” I said. “And how often do the generators experience a breakdown?”

Her amiable face showed a faint expression of worry. “We have never had a
breakdown,
you realize, but as I understand it, the equipment needs constant maintenance. But you would understand such a thing better than I, would you not, Miss—Miss Starborn?”

I smiled involuntarily at the hesitation in her voice. It was clear the syllables sounded strange to her; she could not imagine what such a plain person was doing with such a fanciful name. “I did not mean to imply that you had completely lost power,” I assured her. “But some of the Arkady converters are known to be temperamental, especially the early models, and I wondered how often little—glitches—were known to occur. Don't worry, I will consult the last tech's records. They will tell me all I need to know.”

Her face cleared, she smiled again. “Then, if you have no more questions about the compound—”

I gestured in the direction of the mining buildings. “But should I not go over there and make myself known to the other techs? If we are going to provide backup support for each other—”

“Oh, dear me, no,” Mrs. Farraday said hastily, accelerating the hovercraft so inexpertly that it jerked and shuddered violently enough to send us both clutching at the door frames. “No, no, you do not want to associate with the miners at all. You must not go there.”

“But if I am to be useful to them—”

She had gotten the craft steadied now, and she sent us with its inconsiderable speed back toward the main house. “They have a handful of techs—they can back each other up. It is only we, at the house, who need help from them. No, Miss—Starborn, you do not want to be trafficking with the miners.”

Now that I was no longer in fear of being dumped out of the car, I began to be amused. “But, Mrs. Farraday, whatever could be wrong with them? I have been around rough, untutored men and women before.”

“They are all of that,” she said with a certain grimness. “And some of them are worse.”

“Are they cyborgs?” I asked.

She seemed to jump as if scalded. “Cyborgs! What would make you ask such a thing? Mr. Ravenbeck would not have cyborgs on his premises!”

“The more loss to Mr. Ravenbeck, then,” I said quietly. “But tell me what the problem is with the miners.”

She seemed to stiffen her spine, as if girding herself to say a most unpleasant thing. “You yourself are a half-citizen, Miss—Starborn,” she said. There was no way she could avoid knowing this; it had to be included on my resume. “You know that to be taken seriously in this society, you must behave better than your own class. You must associate upward, not downward. And the miners, for you, would be a step downward. Your behavior must be above reproach for you to look for any advancement at all.”

“I do not look for much advancement,” I said slowly, “but I do take your point. You are telling me that the workers are not even half-cits, then. Are they criminals? Have they given up all status?”

She nodded unhappily. “Some of them. Not the mine supervisor or his assistant, of course. Now, promise me, Miss Starborn, you will not leave the manor grounds. Promise me you will not mingle where it is against your best interests to go.”

I had never met anyone of no status before, and I must admit my curiosity burned far more brightly than my fear, but I had no particular reason to alarm this somewhat simple-minded lady who appeared to have only my well-being at heart. “Certainly I will not seek out trouble, Mrs. Farraday,” I said gently. “It is kind of you to warn me.”

At that, she relaxed, and allowed the hovercar to drop back to a more reasonable speed. We were nearly at the house, in any case, and she must now begin maneuvering the vehicle through the narrow tunnel that led to the garage. She was not very adept at this task, and so I said very little during this passage so that she could concentrate more fully.

Once we were safely parked and back inside the spacious foyer, Mrs. Farraday seemed to experience a revival of spirits, and asked me quite happily if I would care to join her in an afternoon snack. Soon we were seated in a tastefully decorated blue salon, where I had been told we would take all our informal meals, sipping hot tea and munching on some excellent cookies.

“Tell me, Mrs. Farraday, just who exactly the owner of Thorrastone Park is,” I said somewhat boldly, for she was so genteel that I was not sure she could bring herself to gossip. “The name, Everett Ravenbeck, I know from the papers, but of the man I know almost nothing at all.”

“He is a level-one citizen,” she said earnestly, as if that summed him up completely. In one sense, it did; it told me he had wealth, resources, the right to travel anywhere he chose, and, no doubt, a cosmopolitan outlook on life that I could never hope to understand. On the other hand, it told me nothing.