Earth and Fire Read Online Free

Earth and Fire
Book: Earth and Fire Read Online Free
Author: Janet Edwards
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Handicapped babies portalled to Earth, there must be a constant stream of
distressed and defensive parents arriving in every one of Earth’s five
Off-worlds.
    “I’m really sorry
you saw that couple talking to the advocate,” I said.
    Issette shook
her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “It does matter.
I was an idiot to even think of doing this. I was just so chaos frustrated
waiting to leave Next Step, and then there was Earth Flight day with all the
vid channels full of norms celebrating the anniversary of the first
interstellar flight by drop portal. I thought going to see those interstellar
portals, confronting my problem head on, would somehow …”
    I waved my arms
in a gesture of hopelessness. “I don’t know what I thought it would do. I blame
my nuking psychologist for putting silly ideas into my head. He keeps saying I
have to find a way to accept the stars are out of my reach, stop caring about
it, and move on. He may have stopped caring himself, but I can’t. I never will.
Coming here wasn’t going to change anything, and seeing that couple has upset
you.”
    Issette shook
her head again. “You don’t need to feel guilty, Jarra. I see far worse things when
I’m sitting in my own room at Next Step and watching vids. The off-world dramas
use the Handicapped baby plot so often you’d think the risk for norm parents was
one in ten, the same as a Handicapped couple, instead of one in a thousand. What
I hate is the way the story always focuses on how awful it is for the parents,
and how it destroys their lives. Nobody ever considers what it’s like for the
baby. My psychologist says …”
    “No! Please
don’t tell me what your psychologist says. It’s bad enough having to listen to
my own psychologist without suffering yours as well. I think all psychologists
should be thrown into the California Rift!”
    Issette giggled.
“I’ve always felt sorry for your psychologists. How long have you had the
latest one?”
    I grinned. “Two
years now. It’s a new record.”
    “Hospital Earth
must be paying him a special bonus to keep seeing you,” said Issette. “We can’t
risk going back into the Off-world, so where do we go to portal home?”
    I took out my
lookup and studied it for a moment. “There isn’t a proper settlement here, just
the Transit, the Off-world, some offices for Portal Network Administration, and
a minor history site.”
    “Nooo,” Issette wailed.
“You’re going to drag me to this history site, aren’t you? Can’t we go back to
the Transit and portal from there?”
    “We could, but
we’d have to walk most of the way round the Off-world to get there, and that
takes us straight past the history site.”
    Issette gave a
groan of despair.
    I tried bribery.
“There’s an ice cream dispenser at the history site. I’m buying.”
    “Oh, all right
then.” Issette fanned her face with one hand. “I can’t believe how hot it’s
been this week. You’d think it was August instead of June.”
    I laughed. “It’ll
probably rain as soon as the school summer break starts.”
    We walked down a
narrow path between the vertical wall of Europe Off-world on one side, and the
curved wall of a flexiplas dome on the other. All the flexiplas had been left
in its natural depressing grey colour, and there were none of the flowerbeds
and trees you had in settlements. We finally reached a grassy area, where the
stones of an ancient ruin had been excavated and sprayed with a protective
transparent coating.
    The ice cream
dispenser was next to the portal. I bought chocolate ice cream for myself, while
Issette had the disgustingly sweet Adonis peach flavour she adored. We stood
there licking our ice creams and looking at the ruins. Issette didn’t seem
impressed by them.
    “Is that all there
is?” she asked, in a disparaging tone.
    I sighed. “This
is a villa built three thousand years ago by ancient Romans. Rome fell. Europe
went through the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, a
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