Heart of Danger (19 page)

I began to understand why he’d been elected as one of our Governance Companions.

The three of them told stories of Hilto’s bravery. He’d pulled two children from a burning house. He’d been the one with enough nerve to amputate a limb to save an accident victim. ‘He did what had to be done, and he never asked somebody to do what he wasn’t prepared to do himself,’ Leebar said.

Thomas nodded and sat straighter in his chair.

‘When the crisis came, he changed,’ Danyat said. ‘It was a terrible time. We were cut off from the world outside. We lost hope and we were dying.’

‘My father saved you?’ Thomas asked, as hopeful as a fledgling in a nest.

Not his father. My genetic mother.

Danyat sighed. ‘No, Thomas. I’m afraid he didn’t. That’s when he changed, when he got the taste for power. I think he got bitter and fanatical as he got older, and that’s why he wanted a son. He wanted you to be the tyrant he couldn’t be.’

He’d damn well nearly succeeded, in my opinion.

Gilda got up to stand behind her son to hold him close. ‘You’re my son too, Thomas. Never forget that.’

He rubbed his hands together over and over, as if he was washing them clean. ‘You mean I don’t have to be a leader? I can forget about that?’

‘Yep.’ Oban kept his voice light. ‘What do you want to be? Any idea?’

He didn’t have to think about it. ‘A train driver.’

Gilda looked stunned, the grandparents tried not to smile and Oban lifted a hand. ‘High five, brother. You’re a man after my own heart.’

Mother stood and began clearing the table. Everyone else got up to help, but Thomas and I stayed put. Don’t know about him, but my knees felt like they wouldn’t hold me up.

He muttered, ‘That was weird. Mega-freaky.’

‘Sure was.’

‘You don’t hate me now.’ He sounded surprised.

‘True. I’m quite pleased about that, actually.’ The air around him was calm, the darkness had gone completely.

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Relax, there’s pudding.’ And a serious discussion coming up with Nash. How had he known how to help me? How had he even known I needed the sort of help he’d given?

I
didn’t get to speak to Nash till the next day. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

He didn’t need to ask what for. ‘Happy to help.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It was hell of a strong energy. I’ve been wondering if Hilto hypnotised the kid.’

He had to explain what hypnotism was – and it seemed likely. I sure hoped that was the cause, rather than Hilto turning up again in a different body. Whatever, Thomas seemed free of his father at last.

It took me a couple of days to realise the other result of Christmas Day and the Thomas affair was that Leebar and I now looked on Nash as a member of the family. True, it had taken us longer than the others, who’d accepted him as soon as they set eyes on him. But I didn’t see a lot of him as things turned out, because he was working long hours on the sleep-out, with the grandfathers helping and instructing him on what to do.

I managed to get hold of Vima on New Year’s Eve. She was as unforthcoming as ever, so in the end I asked her straight out. ‘How are you – and if you don’t want to talk about it, then say so. Just don’t say you’re fine.’ Because it was easy to see that she wasn’t. She was looking strained and she’d lost weight.

She sighed. ‘We’re getting there. It mightn’t look like it, but we are. Things are clearer now.’

‘From where I’m sitting, they’re as clear as fog.’

‘No, honestly – things are a million times better now that we can talk to each other.’ Her and Jov, or her and James? ‘It’s hard, but it’s easier too.’

‘Well, that all makes a potful of sense,’ I said. ‘But I’m happy you’re getting there – wherever there is.’

‘You and me both,’ she said. ‘Anyway, enough of that. It’s a new year, in case you’ve forgotten. Have a good one, I reckon you’ve earned it.’

‘You too. I mean, you deserve for good things to happen too. So happy New Year to you. And James and Wilfred.’

She blew a kiss and logged off.

 

2086, our first New Year in Aotearoa, and for all of us, as messages of goodwill poured onto the web, it felt like at last we were truly becoming part of our new country. The year began with fresh excitement for my family and me with my genetic father contacting us to say he’d be in New Plymouth at the end of the month and wanted to visit us.

‘Abraham Lucas.’ Mother smiled at a memory. ‘We agonised for ages about whether to choose him or another whose name I’ve forgotten.’

‘So why him?’ I asked.

She looked embarrassed. ‘I’m ashamed to say I liked his name better than the other one.’

Leebar and I shrieked with laughter, and Mother whispered, ‘Hush! Don’t tell Zanin!’

It felt like a long time to wait till the end of the month, but the days went quickly enough, helped by preparations for the grand opening of the sleep-out. We’d invited our friends to come for a barbecue, a plan we stuck to even though it was a day of thundering rain.

‘That’s what garages are for,’ Bazin said.

I tried not to watch Ginevra and Oban too closely but I couldn’t help noticing that they spent the whole afternoon talking to each other.

‘Stop looking like the cat with the cream,’ Nash whispered in my ear.

‘I’m not! I don’t!’

He just raised his eyebrows at me, so I smiled back. ‘Okay. I was. But it’s cool, don’t you think?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t have opinions on matters of the heart. Much safer.’

He reminded me of Marba. I prodded his arm. ‘Wuss!’ Then I asked, ‘What’s next for you? Are you going to be a builder now?’

‘No, I’ve got some ideas, but I’ve got to talk to a lot of people first.’ He wouldn’t say more, so I left him and went to chat to Gilda.

‘Thomas is a different child these days, Juno,’ she told me. ‘I can’t get over it.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I now know more about trains that I need to.’

‘Trains have got to be better than Hilto,’ I said. ‘Here’s hoping we can forget about him from here on.’

But now that Thomas’s problems no longer haunted me, it was Ivor who kept nagging at my mind, even though I’d been careful to keep away from the places he hung out in at school. No way did I want to be ambushed by him again. I knew through the grapevine, though, that he’d be leaving in a day or two for his volunteer year.
Don’t be bitter about him
, Willem had said. I thought about how I felt about him now, bent my mind to it, wanting to get him out of my head forever. There was still sorrow in my heart for the loss of what I’d imagined to be the future. Anger, too, at my own stupidity. Yes, he’d deliberately set out to make me fall for him but I’d been only too willing to build a future out of a few kisses. Willem was right: I’d learnt from the whole debacle and I would be more careful if ever I was attracted to somebody again.

 

Abraham Lucas arrived two days before school started. Ever since we got his message to say he was coming, I’d been trying to picture him sitting at our table with my parents, talking as if our meeting was nothing unusual, but somehow I just couldn’t see it and that made me nervous. I’d talked myself into a fine old state of jitters by the time he knocked on our door.

Mother and Dad went to greet him, but I hung back, wishing Nash hadn’t tactfully taken himself off to the sleep-out. I listened as all three of my parents introduced themselves, but I was too scared to look at my genetic father.

Then he was standing in front of me and holding my hands. I managed a quick glance up. He was tall, gaunt, slightly stooped, and his blue eyes were kind. I saw nothing of my face in his.

‘My genetic daughter,’ he said, sounding both amused and as if he didn’t quite believe it.

I was glad he hadn’t said
my daughter
. I was my parents’ daughter. ‘Huh. Yes. Weird, eh?’

He gave my hands a slight squeeze and let them go. ‘It is indeed. Truly surreal.’ He tipped his head to one side. ‘How about we think of me as a great-uncle?’ He looked at Hera. ‘Great-uncle to the children of Sheen and Zanin of Taris. I would be honoured.’

Mother pulled out a chair for him. ‘You are very gracious, Abraham. We’re delighted to welcome you to our family.’

He said nothing, just got busy wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. When Mother set a cup of tea in front of him, he said, ‘I’d never felt the lack of children – until I discovered I had fathered a child.’

Dad said, ‘You are welcome to visit any time. We hope you’ll keep in touch too.’

We invited him to stay for lunch, and then for dinner. We called up Oban to come over, because Abraham promised to tell us the stories of the building of Taris.

The grandparents nodded every now and again, murmuring that yes, they remembered hearing of the events Abraham related.

‘Why didn’t you want Bradwell Zagan to be the sole leader?’ Oban asked.

Abraham didn’t answer for long seconds, then he said, ‘There was no logical reason why he shouldn’t be. He was strong, intelligent, a natural leader. But I believed an enclosed community would be in danger if just one person called the shots.’

There was more to it than he was saying, I was almost certain. I asked, ‘Was it a belief, or more of a feeling? A sense that it would be wrong?’

Abraham’s eyes sharpened. He looked at me, then my family. ‘The gift – if I can call it that – would appear to be much stronger in you, Juno, than it is in me.’

Dad was shaking his head. ‘What are the chances? Two daughters, both from different genetics and we pick the parents with histories of knowing the unknowable.’ He gave Abraham the bones of Hera’s and my weirdness.

‘Very, very interesting.’ He looked as though all sorts of connections and questions were zapping through his brain, but suddenly he laughed. ‘This is going to send me off on a new train of research. One I’ve been trying to avoid for years.’

‘I know how you feel,’ I muttered.

But Leebar turned the conversation back to the early days of Taris. For once, I was glad my grandmother hated to talk of eerie matters.

By the time Abraham left, I felt easy with him and as if I’d known him forever. He didn’t want to take over my life – I hadn’t realised that’s what I’d been worried about. I was simply happy we liked each other. It felt like I was getting my life in order. I’d met my genetic father, Thomas was sorted – now there was only Ivor left to muddy things up.

I still didn’t want to see him, so on the evening of his departure I wrote him a message on his social networking page. I knew it was the easy way out, but it was the best I could manage.
Have a great year. Our relationship is clearer to me now, and I know I screwed up too. Good luck. Juno.

I didn’t expect him to reply – hoped he wouldn’t. But he did, and quickly.
Thanx 4 writing. Means a lot. Sorry you got hurt.

I read his message several times. Huh! He still had a way to go down the path of wisdom, in my opinion.
Sorry you got hurt.
Not
sorry I hurt you.

I shrugged him away. I didn’t feel compelled to contact him again.

 

School started. Hera was ecstatic to be back, but I knew I had a tough year ahead if I wanted to pass the leaving exams in November. All fourteen of my stratum were determined to finish at the end of the year. We were keen to be together again. Only Marba hadn’t said much about the volunteer year. One evening as we were chatting via mini-comp, I asked him if he wanted to do it with Clemmie or with us.

He said, ‘The situation will become clearer when we know whether we can actually leave school, and if so what we’ll be doing. There’s no point in making plans yet.’

‘You’re a hopeless romantic,’ Dreeda said. ‘Clemmie will finish this year anyway, won’t she? What does she say? Does she want you to do the year with her?’

‘She agrees with me that there’s no point in making plans yet.’

‘Well, I’m going to bust a gut to finish this year,’ Silvern said.

‘Yup,’ said Paz. ‘Same.’

I wanted to be done with school too. A year out in the world. It would be worth slogging my guts out for the prize of the freedom to come. So it was an extremely nasty shock when Willem turned up at our house one Saturday only a couple of weeks after school had started. I pushed aside the English work I was struggling with, bracing myself for what he was about to say.

‘I want Juno and Hera,’ he said, looking at my parents and not at me, ‘to arrive at school an hour early on Tuesdays and Fridays. They both need help to access and understand the abilities they possess.’

Two
lessons a week?

Mother gasped, I groaned and Dad frowned. ‘But surely, Willem, Hera is too young.’

But Hera slid from her chair to go and climb up on Willem’s lap. ‘I’m big, aren’t I, Willem? I can learn and learn and learn.’

He kissed her cheek. ‘Yes, you can, my dear.’ He looked at each of my parents then at me. ‘Juno, all your life on Taris you had to guard your talent. It was dangerous for you to use your mind in anything other than the approved ways.’

Mother almost snarled at him. ‘And you’re saying it’s not dangerous here? You watched that trial, Willem. How can you do this? I don’t give my permission.’ She swung round to me. ‘Do you hear me, Juno? The answer is no. I won’t have it. It’s wrong.’