The Prophecy Overground Chapter Eight

Just a few minutes later Kaleem was sitting in Pierre’s room, in the modern apartment block in the centre of town. From a window they could see down on to the city lights. Pierre’s room was so different from Kaleem’s. Really comfortable furniture and all the very best information equipment.

‘How come you’re out so late, anyway?’ asked Pierre.

Kaleem hesitated before he replied. He had not thought about that. He could hardly tell Pierre what he had been doing.

‘Oh, someone called to see about my mother - and to see how I was getting on my own at home,’ he replied at last. That sounded reasonable he supposed. ‘I felt like some fresh air, so I walked to the transporter terminal with them. Then it seemed so nice out here there, that I carried on walking a bit. I hadn’t really realised how late it had got.’

Pierre stared at him.

Oh dear, thought Kaleem. He thinks I’m a lunatic.

‘How’s the Terrestra Two project going, anyway?’ asked Pierre.

‘Not so good,’ replied Kaleem. In fact, he hadn’t touched it for weeks. Not with everything else that had been going on.

‘I’m glad you said that,’ said Pierre grinning. ‘It’s a real tough one, that. And I’d much rather play Zipchance. Have you got up to level five yet?’

Zipchance, thought Kaleem. When on Terrestra did he have time to play that? Apart from the fact that he’d only just got a dataserve powerful enough to support it. He’d played it once before - here in fact, at Pierre’s place. And he had enjoyed it. Even beaten Pierre that time. Now, of course, Pierre had had much more practice.

‘Shall we have a go?’ asked Pierre.

Kaleem knew he had to. He would look silly if he refused. He was going to look silly anyway. He nearly always did, after all. He nodded to Pierre.

Pierre set up the dataserve. The towers appeared at the corner of the room.

‘What will you be?’ asked Pierre.

‘A white foot soldier,’ answered Kaleem.

‘Then I’ll be a red one,’ replied Pierre.

They took up their places between the towers. The other figures formed. They were joined by more foot soldiers, the four holy men, their four knights and their lady and lord.

‘Foot soldier one, advance two forward,’ said Pierre.

The foot soldier with the number one on his tunic moved towards the centre of the room. He was now standing directly facing a red foot soldier.

‘On guard,’ shouted the red hologram.

‘Accept,’ replied the white one, drawing his sword and standing ready.

‘Knight one, one forward and one up,’ said Pierre. The knight moved forward and sprang up into the air and to the side.

The moves were slow and steady at first. Kaleem held his breath as he moved himself upwards. Although he knew he really was still standing on the floor, the programme was so clever in the way it moved the holograms to give the impression that he was flying, he knew that he was going to feel just as dizzy as if it had really happened. He braced himself. Then came the rush of air and then he was looking down on most of the pieces. Pierre was not yet on the upper level, and Kaleem found himself looking down at him. He looked so real, too. Not like a hologram at all.

Kaleem had been a little too busy thinking about that. He had not noticed that Pierre’s first holy man was threatening his lady.

‘Watch it!’ Pierre warned. Even his voice was coming from below.

Kaleem started to concentrate again. The game became busier. Twice Kaleem’s lord was under attack. He managed to get out of it each time, but almost had to give himself up to do it the second time. Then, though, he managed to block Pierre’s lady. She had nowhere to move which wouldn’t bring her lord under attack, and it was illegal to deliberately expose your own lord to danger. Kaleem’s knight only needed to make one move to take her. If she moved, though, one of Kaleem’s holy men would be attacking Pierre’s lord.

Pierre had to sacrifice his lady. She was the most powerful player. Without her, he had little chance. But Kaleem still did not expect it to be easy. He knew from  past experience that he could keep all of his pieces easily defended. He had no idea, usually, how to lead an attack.

Except that this time it seemed different. He was concentrating better. He seemed to be able to see forward more easily, to be able to predict where the different moves might take him. This time he used his knight more boldly than he had before, he himself skipped around between the eight levels,  making his other foot soldiers do the same, and he was less afraid to send his lady in to do battle. He received no penalties for slow moves this time. He was certainly thinking more clearly.

It was not long before one of his towers, his lady and he himself were holding Pierre’s lord in defeat.

‘Game over,’ announced the dataserve. ‘Kaleem Malkendy to level three.’

‘Wow!’ cried Pierre. ‘You’ve gone up two levels in one game. Well done. That was amazing. How did you do it?’

Kaleem shrugged his shoulders. He said nothing.

‘It’s as if you’ve got new brain power or something,’ said Pierre.

That must be it, thought Kaleem. It had felt as if his brain was working better. And he’d certainly been having to use his head a lot recently. Pierre was staring at him. He didn’t know what to say. He looked directly at Pierre and Pierre looked away.

‘Would you like to play something else?’ asked Pierre.

Kaleem realised he didn’t. He really couldn’t think what to say to Pierre. He remembered the times they had been to the meets. He and Pierre had chatted easily enough then. But perhaps not as easily as some of the others. Kaleem was always conscious of his peculiar looks, even though Pierre didn’t seem to be bothered by them.

‘Perhaps Unimaster or Triple Spender?’ Pierre suggested.

Kaleem at least knew those games. He also knew that that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. He would actually find them boring now. Yet he didn’t want to offend Pierre. For goodness sake, he’d got to have some friends, hadn’t he? He noticed Pierre glance at the astroclock.

I must seem a real bore as well, thought Kaleem. ‘I think I’d better get going,’ he said out loud. ‘It’s getting late.’ That at least was true. He did not add that he needed to be up bright and early the next morning to carry on with his work.

‘Well, I’m glad you  came,’ said Pierre, as he showed Kaleem out of the apartment. ‘Let’s meet up again soon.’

Kaleem nodded. But he knew that he probably wouldn’t. Even with Pierre he was beginning to feel awkward. Razjosh’s wretched programme was actually making it worse.

Within minutes of the logged request, a transporter was depositing him outside the entrance to the caves. Less than half an hour later,  Kaleem was in bed and sound asleep. He did not lie awake tossing and turning as he had done so many times. Neither did he dream. For once, sleep was a complete escape. He woke the next day, refreshed and completely fooled by the familiar comfort of what he thought was his own bed.

Oh no, he thought as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. It’s started.

The room he was in was much bigger than his. It was no longer in a cave. Sunlight streamed through an open window. A breeze ruffled the curtains. He swung himself up into a sitting position.

‘Creía que no ibas a despertarte,’ said a girl’s voice.

Kaleem looked around the room to see where the voice was coming from. She was standing by a large cupboard, half hidden by the partly open door. She was tiny, compared with the people from Terrestra. Her clothes were mauve. Her tunic certainly was not made of ripon. It was long and straight, reaching right down to the floor. There were  two long slits at either side, going right up to her waist. Underneath she wore baggy leggings.

Kaleem recognised the language. It was modified Spanish. That could mean one of several different planets. He was about to ask her where they were supposed to  be.

‘Your clothes are hanging up in the cupboard,’ she said, still in modified Spanish. ‘Come downstairs when you are dressed. My name is Loretta, by the way.’

Kaleem started assembling the words in his head to ask her where they were supposed to be.

‘The shower unit is in the room opposite this door,’ she said before he could bring himself to speak. ‘Be as quick as you can.’

Kaleem walked over to the window. There was a salty smell, almost a taste in the breeze which came through the window. He lifted the curtain up a little. The view outside almost made him gasp. There was nothing between the building they were in and a vast area of flat creamy brown sand which lead to the sea, the blueness of which  was punctuated by frothy white foam which tumbled and melted into the water. The sky was a slightly lighter shade of blue than the sea. The sun was shining hotly.

The room was really warm. Kaleem looked around carefully. There was absolutely no sign of an air controller.

‘Hurry up,’ called Loretta. ‘We don’t have much time, and there’s a lot to do.’

The shower at least was respectably warm and fierce. Kaleem found his clothes hanging in the cupboard. They were very similar to the girl’s, but grey. They felt strange at first. He was so much more used to the tighter tunic and leggings worn on Terrestra. He felt awkward as he moved. He seemed to get tangled up in the loose folds of the leggings and the tunic twisted from side to side. Yet even as he moved down the stairs, he realised that because the clothes were looser, he had more freedom actually within them.

It was so hot there, that he was beginning to sweat even before he got to the bottom of the stairs. Then he noticed another advantage of his new clothes. Their very looseness allowed the air to circulate between them and his body. Terrestran clothes would have been suffocating in this heat. And these clothes were made of a soft, clean material which seemed to absorb his sweat. These strange shoes, which had hardly any uppers, seemed to mould themselves to his feet. He was surprised at how easily he could walk in them.  He had thought he would not be able to keep them on.

He found her in a big room, the floor of which was covered in large, cool, white  tiles. Along the whole of one side were large wooden cupboards with intricately carved doors. She was at one end, in something which looked a little like the kitchen unit in the cave apartment — except that there were more cupboards, they were wooden instead of metal and there was no sign of a kitchen robot.

She was cutting through what looked like a large yellow ball.

‘Here on Tarantet, we always eat fruit to start breakfast,’ she said. ‘And we always eat most for breakfast. It gets too hot later. We work after breakfast until it gets unbearable. We have a light lunch. Then the sand storms come. We sleep through them and work again afterwards. We eat again once it is dark.  But only snacks then. So breakfast is important. Eat well!’

‘Well, don’t you have any air control?’ asked Kaleem. The words felt awkward as they came out.

Loretta laughed.

Kaleem hoped his accent had not been that funny.

‘We can’t produce energy, like you do on Terrestra,’ she said. ‘It would make this planet even hotter. We get most of our power directly from our sun and from the wind when the sand storms come. We use it mainly for cooking, producing water … you did enjoy your shower, didn’t you?’

Kaleem had been concentrating so much on working out the meaning of the words that she was saying that he almost forgot to reply.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Was it all right? We do enjoy our baths and showers. Our one indulgence.’

‘Yes, yes, it was fine,’ Kaleem stammered.

‘And what do you think of the silkon?’ asked Loretta.

‘Silkon?’ asked Kaleem. Had he heard that word right?

Loretta tugged at her tunic. ‘Silkon,’ she repeated. ‘A cloth woven from a mixture of the thread of the spiny spider and one spun from the fibres of the cocon plant. It makes a really heat repellent cloth. One that absorbs sweat without producing stains or smells.’

Kaleem touched his tunic. It was certainly cooler than the air around him and he no longer felt sticky.

‘Sit down,’ said Loretta. ‘Eat and drink.’  She carried plates and cups over to the table. ‘The fruit first,’ she said putting down bowls filled with chunks of yellow. She made a few journeys backwards and forwards, carrying plates of food, and then sat down to join him.

‘There is mountain cheese, meat from the Shellna goat and the Menita pigdog, Tarantet melons, quomnet yoghurt and fraya nectar - oh, and the lumpna beverage, which I personally never touch - most people our age don’t - but it’s the nearest we have to your Terrestran coffee. Should I make some?’ She went to get out of her seat.

Kaleem nodded his head. Perhaps the caffeine would help. He’d been up less than an hour and he was already feeling exhausted. Probably the heat and having to concentrate so much,’ he thought.  Up until now he’d found Modified Spanish one of the easier languages, but Loretta spoke so fast, and there were so many other new things to take in. He would certainly have welcomed a cup of Terrestran coffee. But it was easier just to shake his head than even to find the words for ‘yes, please.’ Besides, there was no guarantee that this lumpna drink would be anything like what he was used to  - or  even be at all drinkable.

Loretta had started tucking into her melon. She smiled at him, almost shyly. Her skin was dark like his, yes, but her hair was also dark, more like a Terrestran’s than his own. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your melon?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me you’re like some of those others from Terrestra - afraid of new experiences.’

That slight teasing reminded him of the day of the class meet. Of course Lorreta had spoken more in fun. But it was just the sort of thing that  Stuart Davidson  and Erik Svenson would say.

She carried on staring at him, her eyebrows raised in a question.

‘No, no, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘I just have to concentrate so much more than normal. This is the first time I’ve really had to use my Modified Spanish.’ That was partly true at least.

She smiled at him and continued eating her melon. Kaleem had to work hard to remind himself she wasn’t real. He didn’t really feel like eating. He watched her finish the melon. She looked up at him again and then looked alarmed when she saw that his bowl was still full. Quickly, he spooned some of the fruit into his mouth. Then he had no trouble eating the rest. He had never tasted anything this delicious.

‘You see,’ said Loretta as he finished his melon. ‘We grow everything naturally here on Tarantet. On Terrestra, you have modified your crops for so many centuries that they no longer have any taste.’

Kaleem wanted to protest that their vegetables were grown out of doors these days, and rain fell naturally from the clouds, no longer poisoned.

‘I know you think you’ve gone back to nature,’ she said. ‘But you really have no idea what nature is.’

Kaleem thought it best not to argue. Razjosh had warned him about something like this happening.

‘If you think you are about to argue when you’re in another culture, just take it steady, sit back and watch what happens,’ he had said.

So Kaleem carried on with his meal. He had to admit, everything else was as good as the first course had been. The tastes were sharper than they were on Terrestra. Were they really, though, or was it just a clever trick from the dataserve. But how could it do it? Using Terrestran resources to produce something which was better than what was normally produced on Terrestra? He decided not to think about that for too long.

He didn’t say much. He listened to Loretta a lot, though, and it gradually became easier to understand her. Occasionally he would have to ask her to slow down or repeat something.

At last, they finished their meal. The implements they were using were quite similar to Terrestran knives and forks. The fork had three prongs instead of the normal four and the knives were really, really sharp. But the basic idea was pretty much the same. The spoons were exactly the same, though Kaleem was not sure what any of the metal was. At the end of the meal, he put his knife, fork and spoon in a neat heap, facing upwards at the twenty past four position on his plate. Loretta made a big X with her knife and fork, face down on the plate, and put the spoon, also face down vertically through the middle of the X. She stared at Kaleem’s plate. ‘You want some more?’ she asked. Her eyes were round with astonishment. ‘Oh, I suppose you Terrestrans are so much bigger than us. And our food is so much better…’ There was a twinkle in her eye.

‘I couldn’t eat another thing,’ said Kaleem. He had already really eaten more than he had room for because everything had been so delicious.

‘Then put you knife, fork and spoon properly on your plate,’ she said. ‘Don’t they teach you manners on Terrestra?’

‘But this is good manners on Terrestra,’ he replied, pointing to his plate. The words had surprised him by coming out so easily.

Loretta laughed.

‘Okay, okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Cultural differences. Fair enough.’ And she stood up and started to clear away the plates.

‘You don’t have robots to help you?’ Kaleem struggled to ask.

‘No, I told you,’ said Loretta, ‘we conserve our resources as much as we can here. We use most of our energy to make water. So that we can feed the plants. Which is where we’ll be going as soon as I’ve finished here.’ She handed Kaleem what looked like a piece of ripon. ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Loretta. ‘You never have to dry the dishes on Terrestra.’ She took the piece of fabric back off him. ‘Look, like this,’ she said. She slowly rubbed a cloth over the wet dish, until it was dry and shiny. ‘And hurry. We should have left for the compound by now.’

A few moments later, they were walking through the tall doorway with the heavy wooden door, out into the bright sunlight.

‘Hmm,’ said Loretta. ‘The caldura’s coming early today.’

‘Caldura?’ asked Kaleem. That was a word he had not heard before. It sounded very much like the Modified Spanish word for ‘heat’ - calor.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Loretta. ‘The second stage of heat. We have seven different words for heat here on Tarantet. Everyday, we go through each stage - and then the sand storms come.’

‘Ah,’ said Kaleem. He couldn’t think what to say. Not that he wanted to say anything. It was so hot there. Even the cool silkon was clinging to him and felt damp. And this was only the second stage.

He supposed they would go to the compound - whatever that was, by some form of automatic transporter like they had on Terrestra. He looked around in each direction. No sign of any pod. No machinery noise.

Loretta whistled. From a dilapidated shed a few metres away from the house a small vehicle moved. It had no wheels. It glided almost silently towards them. Kaleem could just about hear the swish of whatever power system was driving it.

‘Solar powered,’ said Loretta. ‘Of course, it won’t work once the sand storms come. You have to make sure you’re not out and about then.’

The vehicle continued to hover in front of them. Loretta took a small square object out of the pocket in her tunic and pointed it towards the vehicle. A panel slid open. There were two seats inside. She then slotted that disk into a mouth in the panel just below the front window. There was a strange half wheel sticking out in front of her.

‘It’ll take us about ten uniminutes to get to the compound,’ said Loretta. She grabbed the half wheel, pulled it towards her and the vehicle lifted up higher into the air. She pushed it down with her left hand and it went towards the left.

Kaleem realised that she was steering it herself.

‘So, you don’t have automatic transporters, then?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘There’s not enough energy to make everything automatic. And with so few people living here… we can go in any direction we like. You just keep a look out for others.’

A faint, quite pleasant breeze came into the pod. He tried to find out where it was coming from with his hand.

‘Natural air-conditioning,’ said Loretta. ‘The air comes in through small vents as we move. A good job we don’t get traffic jams here. Even in the caldurosa, it would be unbearable.’

‘Caldurosa?’ asked Kaleem.

‘The third stage of heat. With a bit of luck, we’ll be inside the compound before it begins.’ Her face looked grim. She pushed a button and the pod speeded up. They were flying quite high now over the vast stretches of sand. The sea glistened in the bright sunlight which reflected off the top of the water almost dazzling Kaleem. He held his hand out an touched one of the clear panels.

‘Yes,’ said Loretta. ‘it is plastiglass, just like you have on Terrestra. After all, it was invented before the poison cloud arrived. It was originally invented to keep out the glare of the sun. Which shows how bright our sun is, if it’s in your eyes despite the glass. Lucky for you that it was better at keeping the poison away.’

She made the vehicle go down and slowed it to a hover.

‘Just in time,’ she said. ‘Let’s hurry before the caldurosa starts.’

Even walking out into the caldura was hard. It was already hotter than a sauna. Loretta seemed to notice that he was struggling.

‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘at least there is proper air-conditioning, like you have on Terrestra, inside the domes.’

The first dome they visited was where they were producing salad foods.

‘This is the middle-sea dome,’ said Loretta. ‘Named after your Mediterranean. We keep it cool enough to produce peppers, tomatoes and colcats. All high in fibre and vitamins. Essential for humanoid life.’

The plants weren’t growing in soil. Loretta explained that they were fed directly from the air and with a special liquid which contained all the elements they needed for healthy growth. Sunlight, of course, they could obtain via the plastiglass.

Loretta had to work here for a while, so Kaleem was allowed to wander through the other domes. Nobody seemed to worry about him being there.

Why don’t they try to produce more energy? He thought. Surely they can get something out of these storms? Or can’t they use the heat directly somehow?

He remembered, though, something else that Razjosh had warned him about.

‘Don’t question things until you understand,’ the elder had said. ‘Remember, what seems odd to you is natural to them and what we do instead will seem just as odd to them. Absolutely exactly as odd.’

Kaleem was looking forward to seeing the sand storm. It would come that afternoon. Loretta had said. She had told him to meet her in the fish dome. They could eat lunch and then go to the storm shelter. It sounded as if the storm was going to be quite spectacular.

Kaleem had been in the fish dome about ten minutes, when he began to notice a strange whirring noise. It was very faint at first. The sky above the dome suddenly went dark. Loretta came in through the airtight doors. She waved to him. The whirring noise became louder. The sky had gone completely black now, and streaks of lightning were rushing across the blackness. Was the sand storm coming early? He waved to Loretta.

But instead of waving back, she froze. Then she seemed just to dissolve into the air. His tunic changed back suddenly to a normal Terrestran ripon one. That was bound to happen sooner or later. But why now? Why hadn’t he been allowed to experience the sand storm? Might that not have made him more able to understand?

His own room came into view. He could hear his own dataserve chirping away to itself in the background. He had been so absorbed in the world on Tarantet that he had forgotten it was not real.

A hologram of  Razjosh was standing in front of him.

Kaleem opened his mouth to say that he’d wanted to stay and see the sandstorm. There was something about the expression, though, on Razjosh’s face which stopped him saying anything. Not that Razjosh gave him any time to, anyway.

‘There have been five more deaths,’ said Razjosh. ‘And there are twenty others critically ill, not expected to recover. I am going away. You must keep on working on the language programmes.’

Then he was gone. No explanation of why, when or where he was going. Or when he was coming back.

Kaleem ordered the info screen on.

‘The fifth death happened at four a.m. this morning, Central Time,’ said the reporter. ‘The health scientists have no further knowledge of the source or nature of the mysterious illness. As a precaution, all Terrestran citizens are confined to home base. Deliveries by machine only. All machines will be sanitised before and after entry to all buildings.

‘Shut down,’ said Kaleem. So he wouldn’t be able to visit Maria any more. All he could do, he supposed, was get back down to work. Perhaps he would be needed soon, though he hadn’t any idea what he might be expected to do.

‘Continue programme,’ he whispered.