Chill

Tam Sorrell glanced out the classroom window. The view was still impressive even this far down the mountain. The Wilds of Maeven spread out before him, a green and rolling land marred here and there by the orange cuts of Crystal Lumos diggings long since abandoned and only slowly healing, the painful scars of greedy ambition inflicted upon a virgin landscape. Although Tam still thought of it as a wilderness when compared with other parts of Troy, the Wilds were becoming less so as the young colony expanded across the face of the world. More and more farming settlements were being planted, taming forests and wastes that nestled in narrow valleys between the upthrusting High Peaks and townships had multiplied since First Landing at Ithak. The capital was said to house at least twenty thousand people, a number Tam could hardly imagine, but then it did have the Myscenna System's only space port as well as the Gate that linked Troy to other worlds in the galaxy. Other worlds... Imagining life beyond the confines of the village of Upper Maeven inevitably sent a thrill through Tam's sixteen year old frame and forced his gaze skyward above the low cloud, up into the rich blue where a bright jewel glittered in the dawn light. Locally known as the Spark, officially Cimmeron, it was a giant world of ice and death that orbited a greater distance than Troy from Myscenna. One of twenty four sister worlds in the system but far and away the most fascinating. A jewel of a world so replete with meta-minerals the Crystal Lumos Agency regularly sent squads to mine its priceless wealth. Only a small percentage ever returned, so it was rumoured, yet to Tam it was the epitome of adventure and he desperately wanted to run away, join the Pioneer Guild and sign up for a berth on the Love Star, outbound for Cimmeron. Ironic name for a space vessel destined to send men and women to almost certain death on the harsh frontier mining world, but it derived from the poetically inspired name for the Spark. As the glittering world sat in the early morning sky, visible for an hour or more before sun up through the Cut of Doerath, it was often the light by which lovers among the solitary valleys of the High Peaks whispered promises of eternal fidelity to each other. Tam sneered inwardly at the thought. Girl stuff. This made him glance across the classroom where the wavy blonde hair of Sara Manderby glowed in the morning light as she pressed her head to that of the jet black locks of Evie Darkwater in whispered conspiracy about something. More girl stuff no doubt. Sensing somehow she was being watched, Sara turned her warm chocolate eyes upon the boy and smiled faintly. Mischievous Evie Darkwater caught the gesture and looked too, her wide mouth curved in a toothy grin. She blew a kiss at Tam, then crossed her eyes before laughing silently. The girls squirmed and looked away. Their movement brought a third girl into view, a skinny straggly haired creature who from where Tam sat, looked as if she was totally absorbed in her text book - they were studying history - with a passion that brought a flush to her cheeks. Evie had nicknamed her the Drooling One for some reason. Tam vaguely recalled she was new to Upper Maeven, arriving perhaps a year ago. She was a tall, plain creature that lived alone with some elderly offworlder half way up the slope who kept very much to himself. She had rarely attended the school in Lower Maeven at first. A sickly thing prone to headaches Evie had said. Why she was here today, or attended school at all for that matter, Tam did not know nor care. The honey blonde hair, chocolate brown eyes and seductive curves of Sara Manderby were a whole lot more interesting to him right now. In his wild imaginings of an adventurous future the blonde beauty featured heavily. Everything that mattered to him in fact was tied up in the great dream to escape the humdrum existence of farmers and traders in the Wilds. A sharp pain at his elbow made Tam shoot an angry glance at his best buddy Teric Jonas sitting next to him. "Proctor got your eye," the boy whispered in singsong tones of warning. Tam sat up straighter and looked ahead of him. "As I was saying, mister Sorrell," Proctor Sumisoe droned impatiently, "there are similarities with current Expansion policies and that of Augustus in the Great Classical Age of Earth One. Could you elaborate?" There was a pause as Tam cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts as he evaluated the question and briefly glancing at his text book, thankfully on the right page for once. Earth One was the period prior to space exploration he remembered so it was Old History. He could feel Sara's warm gaze upon him and reddened slightly. "Roman Augustus," he began. His voice was too quiet he realised so he filled his lungs and steeled his nerves. "Roman Augustus halted the advance of his all conquering armies in the world then known as Middle Europa because he recognised the force needed to conquer the rest of the world was beyond him. Resources gained by victory did not meet the cost in men and material needed to subdue the wilds that surrounded his empire. Their worth was not worth the effort." He took his eye off the text before him and looked up. "Exactly so, mister Sorrell," the Proctor beamed, relieved someone had been taking an interest. "The key phrase here is not worth the effort. Here we have been expanding at rapid pace into the galactic plane, world after world being colonised, and to what end? There are more worlds than people. Thus like Augustus, the Resource Directorate recognised the need to consolidate, to take stock of what we have. You could liken it to an athlete pausing to catch breath. Before long no doubt, strength will return, the urge to spread farther through the galaxy will once more seize upon human ambition and a new expansion will begin. For now though, ladies and gentlemen, the Second Great Expansion has effectively ended. Except... where?" He looked through thick glasses at the teenagers assembled before him. Tam caught from the corner of his eye a flick of blonde hair, and knew it for Sara's gesture of indifference. She for one had no idea and did not care who knew it. "Here," a small voice broke the expectant silence and all eyes turned to the corner where the Drooling One held up a thin hand. At first Tam thought she was just asking the Proctor for attention, perhaps a comfort break was being requested. "Correct, miss, uh..." "Madrullian," the quiet voice prompted in hesitant syllables. An offworld name. The teacher was still unfamiliar with the new girl, obviously. Tam frowned as the name Madrullian sounded familiar. He was sure he had read it somewhere. A science paper or some such. "Correct," Proctor Sumisoe agreed briskly, moving on to the point he wished to emphasise. "Among the Mineral Stars exploration is as intense as ever. We are at the very forefront of exciting discoveries both here on Troy and out there," he gestured at the window where a silver sparkling light was losing its battle with the Dawn of Myscenna, "on the glory world of Cimmeron." Glory world. Love Star. The Spark. Tam smirked at the list of names the great planet held, knowing the story of each one. The Proctor was sounding like a Pioneer recruiter, exhorting the people of these frontier worlds among the Mineral Stars to heed the call, fulfil human destiny or die trying. As everyone knew, Troy owed its very existence to the extraordinary richness of Cimmeron. No one could colonise the latter planet as it was uninhabitable, a gigantic frozen world of ice storms and crushing gravity. Thus a way station had to be set up, a place where the Pioneers could prepare expeditions under less trying conditions and then launch themselves by conventional hydrogen propulsion towards the glowing ball of ice only a billion miles away via Ithak's space port. Tam knew all about the usefulness of way stations, stopping off points, for he was the son of the proprietor of the Sorrell Wayfarer Inn high up the mountain slope where travellers halted and regaled the drinking hall with tales of distant lands and sometimes distant worlds. Such tales had been his nursery food, absorbed into his very flesh and blood, so that the exhortations of the Pioneer Guild, with their semi-religious fervour and prophetic potency, weighed heavily on his imagination, as they were meant to. He was a prime candidate for recruitment, but there appeared insurmountable problems to overcome before they would even consider him. Tam Sorrell was strong and healthy thanks to a working childhood that all had to go through on a young world like Troy. With his pale bronze hair cut straight on top and buzzed close around ears and back, he already had the look of a Pioneer fresh from one of the elite training academies on Atherbridge Nine. His equally pale and bronze eyes usually danced with good-natured interest when spoken to but drifted off to a dreamy dark colour as thoughts of an adventurous future would seize upon him in moments of quietness. That future had been shaped by long considered plans. He wanted to escape the dull life of an innsman to join the Pioneer Guild of course, but in the normal scheme of things they only took candidates after a period in academy training. There were no academies on backward Troy and no free pass through the Primary Gate at Ithak that would instantly take him nearer the galactic centre where all the civilised Old Worlds of the First Great Expansion would be found. He fully intended to become a Pioneer, no matter what. He would make them take him. His destiny, paraphrasing Pioneer Guild propaganda, lay amid the icy wastes of Cimmeron. Before he went, just like his heroes on Adventure Channel, he would ensure he made a proper parting farewell to his chosen sweetheart, none other than the luscious Sara Manderby. That was an important part of the plan, the part in fact he was most apprehensive about. Tam and Teric had agreed to meet later that day with some other schoolfriends to climb one of the high steep valleys to try the first season's skimming and Sara Manderby was to be of the number. The game involved skimmer boards that tapped into the world's multiple magnetic fields, a legacy of Mineral Star lithology. Their frictionless properties were ideal for gliding down the glacial scooped mountainsides of black rock and then with the velocity so gained it was possible to go a considerable length across Lake Mirron, water skiing using gravity as the motive force. Tam had heard that last season Milon Boerat had managed to cross the lake entirely without stopping. It was his ambition to do the same this season and win Sara's heart completely beneath the Love Star. It was all a matter of physics of course. Vector angles versus air resistance, in the name of love. As soon as school was finished Tam raced up the slope to the inn where he lived, grabbed his board and joined Teric who was waiting for him at the bottom of the outer stairs. The grassy slope of the yard was already populated by an assortment of individuals and animals. His twin uncles Fursten and Forsten greeted him like twins do with identical gestures and inflected voices in harmony as they paused in their yard work. He nodded to them, slapped Teric on the back and paused at the sight of Sara with another girl and two other boys. She had her arm around the girl and leant on her in a lazy, bored kind of way. As soon as she saw him with board under arm making towards the group of youngsters she straightened up and fixed him with her melting chocolate eyes. Evie Darkwater was nowhere in sight. "You and Evie had a spat?" he asked casually as he looked around the group. "No way," Sara responded jovially. "She's off with another friend. Skimming's not her thing anyway. Besides, unlike boys, us girls form much more trusting friendships and close bonding stuff." "Yeah, I read about that somewhere," one of the other lads said, the Dimsoe boy whose father ran a*****e in Lower Maeven. "Sleepovers and nightie-nights, all very hushly secret and boy free." Sara glanced at him with an expression of amused scorn. "You have no idea," she said in a disconcertingly sultry manner and squeezed her friend, who smiled nervously as if uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. "Enough chat," Tam said, noting others had their variously marked boards ready. Teric had painted his a garish red with lemon speed stripes as if that would make it go faster. "The afternoon's wearing on," Tam declared, "let's hit the slopes," and the group made for the fence out of the yard at a rush and began climbing the track up to the stepped escarpment which opened onto the luxuriant high valleys, already in flower among the grazing meadows. "Tam!" a female voice sounded up the hill after they had only climbed a hundred yards or so. Tam paused and looked back, his buoyant thoughts dipping at this motherly summons. "Your father wants you back in the yard tonight. We've got some extra wood to splice and casks to store," came the dread commands. Such was life in a Wayfarer Inn, a twenty four hour day source of chores. "Yes mum," Tam acknowledged, turning on his heel and traipsing disconsolately down the path again back to the yard. "Shame," Sara called back cooingly. "I was planning on skinny dipping this evening as it's such a mild spring day. Now you're going to miss it!" "Yes!" Teric said exultantly, making a very obvious fist pump. Sara Manderby fixed him with her gaze, chocolate eyes filled with withering sadness. "You really are just a boy, aren't you," she said quietly as the group minus one continued their journey up to the high valleys for youthful fun and games. Tam neither saw Teric's excited fist pump nor heard Sara's contemptuous put down as he sadly returned home to undertake the necessary chores to keep his father's business going. Lick Sorrell repeatedly reminded him that one day all of it would be his. Tam always silently responded that he had other plans for his life than being the proprietor of a Wayfarer Inn. A roar from the drinking hall made him look up as he put his skimmer board away and made to grab for a splicer. Business was already good this early in the season it appeared. It was why the inn was here. ~ ~ ~ The Wilds of Maeven sat between two significant population centres in the northern hemisphere. The land was dominated by the great mountain ridge some planetologists say resulted from a catastrophic event eons ago during the early life of the heavy element world. If not for the metal rich crust an asteroid impact would have split the world asunder, never to reform. As it was the great sphere of semi-molten rock reshaped slowly with the memory of that great impact etched on its face. Known by world mappers as the Terrific Ridge, it stretched almost fifteen thousand miles across the then barren land, before colonists arrived to reshape and rename it in detail. Thus close to Maeven it was known as the High Peaks, farther north in the coldest part of the planet it simply became known as the Frozen Peaks, where livestock and flora specially adapted for the colder climate had been seeded. The Wilds formed a natural dip in the High Peaks as if some time in the past a great flood had broken through the black rock barrier between zones. Again the planetologists who first studied the world had an answer. All evidence, they stated, pointed to a time when Troy was much colder and glacial scouring had worn away the jagged peaks of the youthful days in the world's eon long existence. Once the colonists had settled and gazed longingly at the riches represented by the Spark, now only millions of miles away rather than trillions before the Gate had solved the journey problem, they could choose the best parts of the world to populate, build their settlements and begin their trade. The flatlands were first to feel the hand of man as the Crystal Lumos Agency, who financed the whole project, investing in the Cimmeron riches to come, set up their scientific outposts and mining platforms. Ithak had a space port from day one as the focus was the Spark, not the surrounding hills and valleys. Only when the immediate exploitation of Troy itself for meta-minerals was completed, halted in fact as extreme diggings had provoked quakes from the protesting world, that the secondary consideration of agriculture took hold. A new wave of migrants passed through the Primary Gate within five years of First Landing to spread across the face of the world, bringing geotype livestock and offworld technology adapted for the new conditions. The High Peaks turned into grazing land within the first generation and the Wilds of Maeven became a highroad between settlements. At the top of the pass it was natural to pause and refresh for a spring existed there in early days, now dried up in the warming climate caused by manmade changes. Refreshment was therefore brought to the place and stored, a Wayfarer Inn was established and the Sorrells got the licence about thirty years ago. So long as they paid the rent to the Crystal Lumos subsidiary land company, the place was theirs. Only Tam did not want to prolong the innsman tradition of his family. Proctor Sumisoe had emphasised how this area of space was alive with endeavour when elsewhere in the galaxy people had become lazy or contented with their lot, growing fat with the abundance of worlds opened up by Live Gates. Out here among the Mineral Stars everything was bustle and dynamic adventure for it was not land that drew people here but wealth and power. The power perhaps to make Gates, the only known means to travel among the stars. As Tam spliced wood and dreamed dreams of distant worlds to conquer, the afternoon softened into cool evening and he could see the lights of the drinking hall begin to glow into the sky. Luminous posters garishly proclaimed themselves on the wall of the inn with increasing insistence in the growing dusk. One in particular was very familiar to Tam ever since it had been pasted there a week ago. The Pioneer Guild recruitment drive was once more on for the season. He knew duplicate flyers would be scattered across settlements on a thousand worlds, but here on Troy thanks to the redirected ambitions of the Crystal Lumos all those years ago, it was but a simple matter to sign up and step aboard the Love Star. The great ship was due to pass this way in a couple of weeks and dock briefly in the Wilds Proper beyond Lower Maeven to take on board willing recruits for the first stage of Pioneer training. They would be taken to Ithak for assessment and then shipped to the offworld academies beyond the zone. Tam was not interested in going through that drawn out process however, knowing he could not afford it. He determined simply to become a stowaway. There was no other option. The days that followed brought strangely unsettled weather to the High Peaks and opportunities to skim and impress Sara Manderby were lost. Thus Tam suddenly found he only had a brief window of opportunity to say his intimate farewell to Sara, which he had hoped to bolster with his skimming prowess. Now thanks to chores and bad weather he would have to boldly confess to her his desire and emphasise it might be the only time they could be together. She would surely go for that. How could a girl resist such a plea? Deep in the night on the eve of the Love Star's visit, Tam roused himself from his sleepless bed, dressed in loose comfortable clothes and silent shoes and with stealthy care not to waken his uncles or parents, carefully lifted himself onto the sturdy roof of the inn. The complex of buildings stepped down the hillside towards the cottages and houses of the main village in a sprawl of sloping roofs and interlinked walls that enclosed sheep yards and work spaces. He reckoned he could get to the Manderby home without touching ground. It was one of the closest cottages to the inn so he did not have too far to go. Having trespassed gingerly across the wooden tiles of neighbouring houses with slow and careful steps, Tam finally paused to catch his breath on the very roof he knew concealed beneath it the pleasant form of Sara Manderby. His heart beat even faster at the thought of the moment to come and he eased his lithe form silently onto the balcony below. The glass panel he could see was partly open already but inside all was darkness. He crouched by the opening and took in the fragrant warm air that drifted from unseen depths within. "Sara?" he whispered in a lingering hiss. He paused to listen, heard a rustling sound and a pink light blinked on. "It's me, Tam," he announced hesitantly, ensuring the girl did not shriek out at an apparent intruder crouching ominously on her balcony. "I've been waiting for you," came the unexpected reply. By the soft light he could see the bed on the far side of the small triangular room and sat up in it, outlined in a pink glow, the naked form of Sara Manderby. Tam gulped, shuffled nervously into the room and closed the panel behind him, his eyes fixed all the while on the exposed curves of the girl he had been thinking of all night. Then he paused, still drinking in the wonderful sight, as a puzzling thought occurred to him. She had been waiting for him? He had told no one of his plans. An unexpected movement in the bed drew his eyes from Sara. The jet black hair of Evie Darkwater lifted from the pillow and she sat up also, as naked as her friend. "We've both been waiting for you," Evie said in a teasing whisper. "Pleased?" "How - how did you k-know?" Tam tried to ask, overwhelmed by the sensations he was experiencing right this moment, dreams a sixteen year old boy could barely comprehend let alone hope for. "We had prior knowledge," Sara explained helpfully, raising an eyebrow. Evie glanced at her as she spoke and in the subdued light her dark eyes were like bottomless black pits of affection. With a delicate gesture of her hand she brushed blonde locks off Sara's bare shoulder, leaned forward and softly kissed the pink cheek of her friend. Then she nuzzled against her and gazed fully at Tam, still frozen by the door panel. "A skinny bird whispered to us," she giggled. Although this meant nothing to him as an explanation, a small pink light popped on inside his head at that moment. Sara and Evie, naked in bed together. Always inseparable at school. Friends, close friends, very close friends. He got it. His shoulders sagged a little at this revelation and it somehow seemed to calm his nerves. He so wanted to make love to Sara Manderby, at least all his thoughts regarding her seemed to trend that way, yet somehow the thought of going through with it terrified him. Now he felt calmer, he had a way out of what he felt he owed the girl he had spent so much time thinking about. "I've come to say goodbye," he said with a cough, looking rapidly from one girl to the other. "We know," and Sara let the bed sheet drop even lower. "You don't understand," Tam pursued, trying to keep his scattered thoughts from dissipating all together. "I'm leaving Upper Maeven, forever, and wanted to, to say goodbye." He took several deep breaths. This was not going as planned, how he had played it out in his head. Two girls were before him, in bed, waiting for his next move. The room span a little and he felt his courage begin to leach from him again. Surprisingly Sara came to his rescue. She climbed out of the bed and he could see she was wearing only tiny briefs with little blue cornflowers strategically scattered upon them. On bare feet she padded over to him and he half noted Evie lie back in bed, covering herself up, as if no longer part of this liaison. Slender bare arms wrapped around the boy in an affectionate embrace and a cloud of heavenly perfume filled his nostrils as fragrant soft hair brushed his face. A squeeze and the girl stood back, looking up at him with warm chocolate eyes. "Goodbye," she whispered. "We're still friends, okay?" "Always," Tam gulped, gazing with regret at the soft appealing nakedness of the girl. She turned her shapely back on him, flicking the mass of blonde hair as she crossed the room and climbed back into bed to snuggle up with her close friend. Giggles could be heard and squirming limbs thrashed beneath the bed sheets. Evie sat up briefly and blew a kiss at Tam as he slowly retreated, scrabbling for the panel. "'Bye mister Sorrell," she said with mischievous formality. "Think of us on your long journey," and she fell back on the pillow with such a plump her black hair spread out like a fan around her pale and pretty face. The last thing Tam saw as he departed onto the balcony was Sara reaching out and caressing that mischievous face of Evie Darkwater. ~ ~ ~ The journey back up the hill over roofs and walls, although more hazardous as early morning dew made surfaces a trifle slippery, was performed without conscious thought. Tam's mind was in turmoil. He did not stop at the Wayfarer Inn but kept on going, climbing the escarpment in the semi-darkness, crossing meadows where sleepy animals bleated at him in soft alarm, until he reached the still cool waters of Lake Mirron. He stripped and dived in, the next best thing to a cold shower he could think of at that moment, staying in the water until his ardour had diminished, frozen out of him by the meltwater lake. Inevitably at school he found it hard to keep himself awake during lessons, even with the dark-eyed mischievous glance of Evie Darkwater piercing his soul every now and then. He smiled at the memories he held. With the shock softening he consoled himself pleasantly, for what he had seen was a sight no other boy in class had the remotest hope of experiencing. Both Sara and Evie were lovely to behold, he mused. Yes, he would think of them on his journey. Their unadorned beauty would be the last image on his mind if he found himself dying on some frozen ridge on Cimmeron, the Love Star indeed. A strange tingling sensation brought him to the present, a classroom full of teenagers intent on Proctor Caloeth's Political Science lesson, and he glanced over at the familiar corner only to see the Drooling One looking at him. He blinked, trying to keep awake, and she rolled her eyes before refocusing her attention on the teacher in front. He continued to look at her. Long straggling chestnut hair, clean but only half combed into neatness. A tight fitting blouse that emphasised the flat-chestedness of the girl, bare bony elbows propped on the desk and long thin fingers toying with the text book pages in front of her. Then it struck him full force. Tam sat upright, suddenly very awake, his movement so abrupt a pencil case clattered to the floor. "Yes, mister Sorrell, did you want to add something?" Proctor Caloeth fixed him with an expectant stare. "No, sir. Please, carry on." Some in the class sniggered at this polite response and Sara flicked her blonde locks with amused indulgence. He did not meet the chocolate-eyed gaze he knew was appraising him at that moment. Another thought had coursed through him as a result of last night. Sara knew he was coming. They both did. What did Evie say? A skinny bird had whispered it to them. He looked again at the hunched slender form of the Madrullian girl, knowing what he believed to be true. It was her. She had told them. But that begged the question... How could she have known? To be continued...