Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 Read Online Free Page B

“How many years?”
    “You will be eligible when you are sixteen Coriolan years old, so you will be studying here with us for the next …” he looked down at a piece of paper to check her age, “… two Coriolan years.”
    Two years! If he had told her that she would be required to fight Cesan catumbas with her bare hands, she could have coped. But to sit here day after day for two years doing nothing but schoolwork? That was not heroic, that was plain torture. Diva had always hated school, even on Coriolis. She gave a sigh. And her father had been convinced that he was sending her off to a land of opportunity! No wonder the Sellite had seemed surprised when the Elder had offered his own daughter. It was beginning to look like an extremely bad idea. And to cap it all, the only person she was going to talk to for the next two years was bound to be that abominable boy from Kwaide. He would have been the following candidate to come down to Valhai; ten to one he would be the occupant of the next bubble. She looked up, tempted for a brief moment to ask for a change of bubble, and then gave the idea up. Nothing she had seen so far led her to believe that her status was any different from all the other candidates. Who was going to listen to her?
    There was a sound off to her left and she dragged her eyelids open again. A bowl of food had appeared. It was a mixture of fruit and staples, and there was a flask of water beside it.
    “Get your food and eat,” Atheron instructed her gently. “You will need to keep your strength up.”
    Numbly, she stood up and went to collect the food. There were no utensils with it … perhaps they thought she might damage herself? Though that would also constitute a breach of contract, no doubt, and bring disgrace down upon her family and her world. She forced herself to pick out one morsel at a time and to make her way through the bowl. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how she felt. The Sellite watched her in silence.
    “Can’t I turn you off?” she demanded.
    “Certainly you can. Within the guidelines I have laid out for you,
    you are responsible for your training. Naturally you will switch off the interscreen before you shower and when you use the toilet facilities or sleep. At other times, I expect you will prefer to leave it on. We will be good company for each other, won’t we?”
    She gazed at the face, but found she wasn’t able to answer. He went on, “Beside the shower area you will find a small wardrobe folded into the orthogel, and you will find suitable clothing for a candidate. You are asked to be as clean and tidy as possible at all times. You will be responsible for cleaning your own garments. Our sessions are recorded automatically and prospective investors may want to see specific training sessions. I must also inform you that even with the interscreen switched off, your heartbeat is continually monitored and I am authorized to override the controls of the interscreen if there is any doubt about your state of health.”
    “‘Prospective investors’?” she questioned.
    “We will go into all that at a later date,” he assured her. “I think that the most important thing now is that you finish eating and get some rest. You will want to switch off the interscreen now.”
    As he had predicted, Diva immediately felt swamped with loneliness as soon as she had carried out this suggestion. Still, she forced herself to shower and then went towards the orthogel bed. She lay down, and pulled a thin sheet of the same material up around her neck. The bed felt comfortable but unsafe. She sank partially into it, and it was easy to imagine the bed suddenly giving way to absorb her totally in an asphyxiating silence. She lay warily in the semi-darkness, afraid to move. There was only a dull washing noise like water lapping on a distant shore. That, at least, was comforting and finally she dropped into a deep sleep, disturbed only by her dreams. In her sleep, she