Kaleem’s journey home was entirely uneventful. He could not understand why Edmundson had got so agitated … unless it was something to do with that strange droid. He dreaded to think what that might be.
Marijam was out when Kaleem got back. Nazaret, however, was not. He could do without this, he really could. Yes, it was totally illogical but it was there: he was uncomfortable around his father, even though he actually liked the man and this was the very same father he wondered about for years before he eventually met him, seventeen years after he’d been born.
Nazaret was working at the communal dataserve in the lounge. Why did he have to be there? Why wasn’t he working in his office downstairs?
“Mum gone out?” asked Kaleem.
“Yes, she had a meet,” replied Nazaret. “We may have something to celebrate later. Looks as if they have the credits for the artificial photosynthesis project. If that goes ahead, we’ll have this planet looking like Terrestra in no time.”
“Oh, good,” mumbled Kaleem.
“Just give me a couple of secs – ah here it is,” Nazaret looked up from the dataserve and grinned at Kaleem. “This is all in Wordtext and I’m so slow at it. I need the expert help of my one and only son.”
Kaleem cringed. He looked at the screen. Oh, it was easy to read, and not all that important. It was just about the expected success rate of farmed acorns’ ability to germinate and produce oak trees. Well, they knew that already and Nazaret had taken it much further.
“Thanks,” said Nazaret, after Kaleem had finished. “And how was your meet?”
Now we’re getting to it, thought Kaleem. You’re just being nosey.
He told Nazaret all that Edmundson had said and all about Emmerline.
“Ah yes,” said Nazaret. “The famous Emmerline. Now I really would like to meet that droid one day.”
No you wouldn’t, thought Kaleem. She’s a tart and you’re a married man. Married to my mum, in fact.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Nazaret continued. “Don’t you think it would be better to get some new people here? That bunch is already committed enough, don’t you think? It’s other Terrestrans who need to be educated.”
“It’s not what Edmundson said,” replied Kaleem. “Look I’d better get on.”
“Don’t work too hard,” Nazaret called as Kaleem made his way to his room.
I wish he wouldn’t interfere, thought Kaleem. Yet he knew Nazaret was right.
As soon as he walked through the doorway into his room the dataserve switched itself on. The machine was loading up before Kaleem could even think what he wanted to do.
“Communicate with Terrestra?” asked his own younger voice. He really must get that voice changed. And he really must find out a bit more about how these machines did it.
“Yes,” replied Kaleem. “Razjosh Elder, please.”
Within seconds Razjosh’s face was filling the screen. Just two years ago that would never have happened. Zandra would not have been able to communicate with Terrestra that easily. We must be doing something right after all, thought Kaleem.
“Ah, Kaleem,” said Razjosh. “Good to hear from you. Can I be of any help?”
Kaleem explained about the meet with Don Edmundson, about Emmerline’s suggestions and about Nazaret’s reaction.
“So, I think he might be right,” said Kaleem. “Shouldn’t it be Terrestrans who’ve never been here before who come here? And ones that need educating. Those friends of mine don’t so much.”
“Or would you consider that it might be too much in one go for most people? It may even be quite a lot for these friends of yours, despite their openness,” said Razjosh. Then he smiled. “Though I expect Mz Sandi Depra will cope admirably. As actually, I suspect, will Saratina.” Razjosh suddenly looked serious. “But Rozia. Rozia Laurence. How will that be for you?”
Kaleem wished the elder hadn’t mentioned that. He couldn’t bring himself to think too much about it. It would be just too painful having her here if they couldn’t be together.
“Is she well enough to travel? How is she? Have you heard from her?” Razjosh continued.
“Yes, yes, she’s fine now,” replied Kaleem. “Fully recovered.”
The elder’s eyes lit up. “You’re in touch?”
If only, thought Kaleem. “Not really,” he mumbled. “I’ve been watching her, though.” That sounded terrible. He felt himself blush. He tried to work out what Razjosh made of that but the elder’s face was like stone. He was completely unreadable.
“Take care with her,” he said. “And take care of yourself.”
“So you think I should ask that delegation to come then?” asked Kaleem, changing the subject.
“I do. I do indeed,” replied Razjosh. “There is one thing, though.”
“Oh?” said Kaleem.
“You really shouldn’t be relying on me for advice,” said Razjosh. “I shouldn’t be here now and goodness knows what might happen at any time. I can’t imagine I’ve got that much time left.”
Kaleem’s mouth went dry and his heart began to pound. “There’s nothing wrong is there?” he asked.
“No, no, no. Nothing specific.” said Razjosh. “But I am getting on bit.”
That was a relief.
“You do have your father there. You can talk to him. And there is also your grandfather. But,” Razjosh sighed, “a Peace Child really does need to be able to keep his own counsel.”
Kaleem couldn’t think what to say.
“Come,” said Razjosh. “Not so glum. I’ll always be delighted to hear your news. And I won’t be beyond offering a snippet or two of my collected wisdom, now and then, for what it’s worth. But you can do it, you know. On your own. So, take care, Kaleem. Good bye.”
“Good bye,” whispered Kaleem as the screen went blank.
Well, I’d better get on with it, he thought. The easiest would be Sandi Depra. Definitely. Sandi’s face appeared on the screen within seconds of Kaleem calling her up.
“Hey, Funny Head,” she called. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” said Kaleem. What was she calling him funny head for? Her own today was frizzy and blond with thin pink strips of straight hair that had been wired to stand upright.
“So how may I help?” she asked.
Kaleem told her about Edmundson’s suggestion.
“You mean I get a second chance to come to Zandra?” she said. “After I missed out the first time. Mind you, the Supercraft trip was good. Even the scary bits.”
“You did get to Zandra eventually,” said Kaleem.
“Yeah, after all the fun was over,” replied Sandi. “You’d done it all by then. And we were only there for such a short time. This time we’d really matter. Count me in!”
It was good to see Sandi so enthusiastic about the project. Mind you, she always was enthusiastic. About everything. She never seemed all that serious really. It was difficult to work out how she had become head of health.
“Well that’s good,” said Kaleem. “One down, five to go.”
“Yeah, Rozia,” said Sandi. “That’s a tough one. Do you think she’ll come.”
“Oh yes!” said Kaleem. Rozia would always do what was right – no matter how much pain it caused her. He didn’t think he could bear it though, the pain of being so near to her and not being able to be with her, knowing that she now belonged to someone else.
“Hey, come on Funny Head, cheer up,” said Sandi. “You’ll do it. You know you can.”
“If you say so, said Kaleem. He just didn’t know how and he wished somebody could tell him.
“Way to go! We’re off to Zandra!” cried Sandi. “Woo-ooh!” She twirled round on the spot and then turned back to grin at Kaleem. “Keep me informed, Peace Child babe! Tata for now.”
Kaleem wished she had stayed a bit longer. She did always manage to cheer him up. In fact, he was having some difficulty stopping himself from laughing. He would have to calm down before he moved on to the others.
The others were remarkably easy to talk to as well in the end. None of them hesitated. Saratina was really excited though it was impossible to tell what she was saying.
“Om zanna? Eelee? M iarateena? On oopooraf? Es! Es!”
Kaleem guessed by the way she was clapping her hands and jumping up and down that the answer was yes. The vigorous nodding of the head was a further clue.
“I take it that means “yes”?” he asked
The jumping, clapping and nodding became even more vigorous.
“Ank oo aleey!” she said. Then the screen went blank. Ah! So the Z Zone wasn’t quite up to speed yet.
Pierre LaFontaine was at a meet so his communicator was on standby. Kaleem had to talk to his partner Stuart Davidson instead.
“I’m sure Pierre would love to come to Zandra,” he said. “He often talks about how envious he was of you when he knew you were leaving Terrestra. And of how he envies you being involved in all of this diplomatic work.”
He’s envious? thought Kaleem. I’d swap him any day. Well apart from having Stuart Davidson as a partner.
“Well, what about you?” asked Pierre.
“Yeah,” replied Stuart. “Yeah, I’d like to come.”
“You have changed!” said Kaleem. A bit different from your dad, he thought.
“Yeah, well, you know, my dad had got it wrong,” said Stuart Davidson. “He really thought it was right and it was better for everybody on Terrestra if we didn’t mix with other people.”
I guess he did, thought Kaleem.
“Do you know the funny thing is,” Stuart continued, “it was actually reading Wordtext and some of the stuff I then read that made me start thinking a bit differently?”
Kaleem laughed. “Well I’m glad I thought of that punishment up for you,” he said.
“Oh, yes, it was a punishment all right,” replied Stuart. “Bloomin’ hard work. But I’m glad I can do it now.”
Stuart confirmed that he and Pierre would come and they would get in touch again soon.
Ben Alki Mazrouth was also enthusiastic.
“About time I did something useful,” he said. “I haven’t really up until now.”
“Well what about when you helped to stop Razjosh’s switch-off?” said Kaleem.
“Well, that was me and a few others,” said Ben Alki.
“Yes, but we couldn’t have done it without you,” said Kaleem.
Ben Alki shrugged. “I’d really like to do this,” he said. “Not just because it would be exciting, going to another planet. I’d like to work with you – for you, if you like, all the time. The projects I’ve done so far have been pretty meaningless.”
Kaleem couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Somebody actually wanted to work with him.
So, everybody was in agreement then. They would all come on this mission and perhaps more importantly would happily receive visitors from Zandra.
There was just one more communication he needed to make now. Rozia. That one he was dreading.
How could he ask her to come here? How could he even talk to her? He couldn’t be comfortable around her, that he knew. What would it be like for her?
He was suddenly hit by a wave of memories. How he’d first met her. How they went into the Z Zone together. How good she’d been with the Adulkis. Then the terrible scene when she’d fallen unconscious. All those weeks when she’d been in that coma. And finally when he’d had to leave her. He didn’t want to. Of course he didn’t. But it had been the right thing to do.
He’d followed her Glog all those months. He knew how it was for her now. She was with Julien now. She loved this new man as much as she had once loved him. In a different way but just as much.
Kaleem could not imagine himself being with anybody else. That at least was something he had in common with Nazaert. Now that he had found the one, there could be no other woman for him.
Obviously different for her. But that’s what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? That she should be happy with someone else. Well, it was one thing knowing that this was right. It was another entirely feeling okay about it.
Whatever the rights and wrongs about it all, how was he going to face her? How was he going to do it?
But do it he must.
He called up her sign.
The dataserve screen flickered. Then it went black. In fact all the lights went out in the apartment. An alarm started sounding. The whole building started to shake. The doors on cupboards flew open and objects on shelves fell to the ground. There was a low rumble all the time. Kaleem found it hard to keep his balance.
“We have to get out,” shouted Nazaret.
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