0°
Lyra’s skin itched uncomfortably under her shabby uniform. Catching her breath, she leant back against the pallet, and first brought one knee up to her waist, hugging it for a few seconds, and then the other. She felt the throb of blood pooling in each leg as it dangled; the first time this shift that they were not bearing her weight. The doors of the elevator clamped shut, and she began her descent. One floor, two floors, three.
A quick, envious look at the pallet.
This order was of immeasurable value.
Nine floors, ten floors, eleven.
The creaking sound stopped and the doors opened at her floor.
She took hold of the handlebar of the pallet jack. Back braced, she pressed her muscular body against the cargo. One hard shove and the stiff wheels gave way. It rolled out of the elevator. A few more pushes and it started to pick up momentum.
She was now making her way down one of the many subterranean passages in the industrial sector of Polar Cap North, drenched in sweat.
Along the gangway, she passed several other workers moving in different directions – many pushing their own pallets.
A squat, heavily muscled form heaved past her.
“Lyra.”
“Sespik.”
No time to stop. Lyra pushed on.
“Breathe in,”
“heave,”
“breathe out.”
“Delivery for Warehouse B-36.”
“We weren't expecting anything this early, hold on…”
The man pulled out a pad from his pocket. His bulky fingers thumbed over the device.
“Tungsten pallet wasn’t supposed to arrive until two.”
“Tungsten? This is Lumber.”
“Lumber? Let me see the invoice…”
Organic material was, of course, a far scarcer and more valuable raw material than metal in the warrens of Polar Cap North. Lyra handed over the sealed tablet with the order details etched into it with fine magnetic particles. The man wiped some sweat from his brow and frowned at the uniform metallic letters.
“This goes to Warehouse B-37.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to take it over there.”
The mistake meant a longer journey through the gangways and corridors. Lyra sighed and heaved her cargo away.
And as she made her way towards B-37, her mind started to drift.
Daydreaming was a skill of hers. She employed it liberally during her hard shifts, moving raw materials in the clammy bowels of the planet. Daydreaming – whether thinking positive or negative thoughts – helped her to get through the day. And the frequent star of the show, the focal point – no – the centre of her entire world, was her young daughter, Elora.
Elora was at home waiting for her today. She hadn’t gone to school. Why? Because she had fallen over that morning in the bathroom.
And a fall in high gravity could be lethal.
Fortunately her daughter wasn’t too injured. Just a hairline fracture in her wrist where she broke her own fall. It was already in a plaster of Paris cast, which a drowsy Lyra had applied herself before starting her shift.
Life in High G was hard and miserable.
Infant mortality rates were extremely high, and to the frustration of Lyra and everyone else, the mineral wealth ripped out of the ground here never quite seemed to translate into an increased standard of living for the inhabitants.
But how could it? The very gravity of the place was constantly trying to kill them. And they couldn’t leave. It was impossible, medically speaking. At least for the adults.
Lyra could feel it constantly. Pulling her down. Crushing her.
But the one ray of sunshine in her life was Elora. A love, running so deep, that it couldn’t be expressed in simple words. Elora was just simply her whole world. She would do anything for her daughter, wouldn’t she?
It was a point of pride of Lyra’s, that she had never transmitted her frustrations to her daughter. It was an unconditional love, and the little girl had no idea about the sheer difficulty Lyra had had, from the womb, up until now, of just simply keeping her alive and happy, and shepherding her through infancy.
Well… alive, yes. But happy? Lyra tried her best. But it was so very often out of her control.
Every day was a challenge.
The shriek coming from the bathroom that morning was blood-curdling.
“Ahhhh!”
She bolted down the corridor as fast as gravity permitted.
“Mummy! Mummy!”
“What.. is.. it.. Elora?!”
“My hand! I hurt it when I fell!”
Her wails and sobs were painful. It stung Lyra in the chest to see her daughter in pain. But the run down the corridor had exhausted her. It took her several minutes to get her breath back before she could talk.
“You’re all right, darling. There there. Let me see – oh dear, looks like a little fracture, that’s all,” doing her best to maintain a soothing voice, she said, “nothing to worry about. Let’s get a cast on that. You’re being very brave, darling! There, there now, don’t cry. Mummy is here.”
She did her best to reassure Elora, even as it pained her to see her daughter in distress.
It was all just so difficult.
Lyra was a woman weighed down by gravity, weighed down by poverty, and weighed down by responsibility for her daughter.
“Lumber delivery for Section B-37.”
“Invoice please, let me sign that. You got a stylus?”
“Here.”
The dimly lit canteen was packed with perhaps one hundred and fifty employees, spread out over fifty or sixty low-set tables. The air was heavy and clammy with the stale, second-hand breath of the workers, as two giant ceiling fans above laboured in a futile attempt to ventilate the miserable chamber.
Fentor took a sip of his coffee to fight off the drowsiness. It was a thick, syrupy substance with a bitter taste. He gulped and winced.
“You know, the conditions here never cease to depress me.”
Lyra stared up from her plate. “Why won’t you let me enjoy my reduced ration of bread in peace!?”
“I’m sorry. I like to get my frustrations off of my chest, see, Lyra. It's hard, moving pallets of worthless diamonds from one warehouse to another every day.”
“Speak for yourself… Today I moved a pallet of lumber! I think I win, don’t you?”
“Congratulations,” said Fentor, so lazily that the sarcasm was almost undetectable.
“You know…” said Lyra, “all of the juicy metals and minerals happen to be here… this is the place to be.”
“I suppose we should feel privileged for our special position then.”
As Fentor and Lyra were speaking, a strange man could be seen on the far end of the canteen. He was noticeably taller, thinner, and more unsteady on his feet than everyone else in the bustling canteen. The most striking thing of all though, was his brilliant clothes. Delicate, colourful, loose fabrics contrasting rudely with the shabby uniforms of the workers. He was talking to the foreman who was consulting an electronic pad. After a brief interaction, the strange man limped off, and the foreman cast an eye around the canteen.
He gesticulated to Lyra.
“Oh shit, better you than me, Lyra.”
“This better be important.”
Lyra went up to the foreman.
“What is it?”
“We have a visitor, Lyra.”
“The Equatorial? That you were talking to just now?”
“He wants to speak with you.”
“To me?”
60°
The man was waiting for Lyra in a private room. He rose very slowly from his chair as she approached.
“Ah, hello Lyra.”
His frame seemed enormous but frail… arms, legs and thorax were unnaturally elongated, like a stick insect or a mantis. He was deeply wrinkled at the brow and had wispy, silver hair. It was rare that Lyra ever saw a living human so old: this stranger had to be about sixty or seventy at least. The man didn’t move from his position behind the desk, but waited for Lyra to approach him.
“My name is Quentax. I am from Colony 16, in the Equatorial Belt.”
With long fingers curled outwards, Quentax extended his slender hand to shake. She wiped her hand clean against her shabby uniform, and then clasped her palm in his and gave a firm shake. He grimaced in pain under her grip.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Oh no, it's quite alright. I understand that it is quite rare to see one of us down here? I imagine you’re not used to… ” he trailed off as he spoke. Slowly bending, he sat back down in his seat, beckoning her to be seated too.
There was a moment of silence as Lyra regarded Quentax. He exuded elegance and frailty. His speech was slow and deliberate, and he had a self-assured and stately air about him, despite his obvious physical discomfort at standing (or sitting) in high gravity.
“It's mostly the higher-ups that deal with traders from the Equatorial Belt, sir. It’s not too uncommon to see your kind here on one-stops, but you’re the first I’ve ever spoken to in person.”
“It takes quite a toll on the body to come here. I can only make the journey once every seven years. Any more would most likely kill me.”
“Most certainly.”
Quentax’s face softened slightly. As he opened his mouth to speak again, Lyra anticipated that he would explain his presence here. But he took a different tack:
“How are things in the warehouse, Lyra? I was speaking with your foreman today, and he told me that they have cut the bread ration this week.”
“Yes. You heard right.”
“You are… frustrated, as I can imagine.”
She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “Frustrated, yes… but people in the caps are expendable anyway, so their complaints are usually ignored.”
“You are resigned to it.”
“I guess you could say that. If you get to be as old as I am here, you learn how to get by. I don’t expect anything, and that way I’m never disappointed.”
“Perhaps… you don’t need to be resigned to it.”
“How so? I’m trapped here in high gravity. My body has adapted. I can’t live on the belt with you. It’d kill me, right?”
“Yes. Yes, it would.”
“So what hope is there? I’m trapped.”
He rested his chin on his hands and nodded empathetically.
“The work you do here is …”
“Essential. We know.”
A pause.
“You know, Lyra, this planet is harsh. It was never meant for human life. Neither the Polar Caps, nor the surface, nor the Equatorial Belt. Look at me, for example. My body is weak. No amount of material wealth can compensate for what this planet has done to me. Done to both of us…” he paused, catching his breath. As if demonstrating his very point, she saw how taxing it was on him to speak at length. “But all of the raw minerals necessary for life… are only to be found in the Polar Caps. And you are the only ones who can survive these conditions. We… ” he held his hands before him as if to show her how fragile they were, “cannot.”
“The gravity.”
He nodded.
“The gravity.”
There was something about this man, despite his alien appearance, a paternal kind of warmth perhaps, which was very disarming.
She took a breath and began. “You know, sir?”
“Please call me Quentax.”
She paused and leant forward. “Today I moved an entire pallet of lumber.”
Quentax hummed in assent. “That… is really quite something.”
“Quentax?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here? ‘I don’t need to be resigned to it.’ What’s that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?”
Quentax let out a gentle sigh. “Well, Lyra, I must tell you that I am not here for trade.”
“I guessed.”
“I am an ambassador of The Lottery Commission. I am here for three days in Polar Cap North to present the formal offer to winning citizens. I have many visits to make, but you are my first.”
For a moment Lyra still didn’t register. “The Lottery Commission?” What did that have to do with her?
“Are you familiar with the lottery, Lyra?”
Everyone in the polar colonies was, of course, familiar with the lottery. Each year, for one hundred children from Polar South and Polar North, the lottery was the chance for a new life.
“Well, I’m familiar with the lottery, yes. But I am too old to move to the belt.”
“You are quite right, Lyra.”
Quentax shifted a little in his seat. She noticed for the first time since she had sat down that his fingernails, unlike hers, were impeccably clean and trimmed.
For a moment they sat in silence.
“I’m sorry, Lyra. The only thing that I have within my mandate to offer… is a winning lottery ticket.”
She still didn’t follow him.
Then it dawned on her.
“Oh no.”
“Yes, Lyra. I have the unenviable job of coming here to present Elora with a ticket.”
Now Lyra felt the walls of the room as enormous, threatening barriers closing in on her. She thought about her daughter, and she felt sick. No – she felt furious! Take Elora away. It was absurd. It was almost funny!
Quentax wasn’t laughing.
“That’s… impossible. Elora can’t… I… no!”
He said nothing. She spluttered for words, but there were none. She heard the blood in her ears. She felt her cheeks burn red. Her Elora. Her little Elora!
“Who the fuck do you think you are, old man? How dare you? Come here, asking to take my daughter away from me!” She was shouting now. Her voice was cracking uncontrollably. She stood up and was red in the face. “You have a fucking nerve! I should snap you like a twig right now!”
She moved forward menacingly, fists balled, and he flinched.
The door opened behind her. Evidently, a security guard had heard her bellowing.
A cowering but level-voiced Quentax made a calming gesture to the guard. “It’s all right. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Yes, it’s all right. Leave us.”
The guard gave a doubtful look. The door gently closed.
Lyra was standing over Quentax. Shouting down at him. She was quivering with rage.
“Lyra.”
She grabbed a paperweight off of the desk and launched it across the room. Quentax jumped as it smashed against the wall and left a large dent. She turned her back to him.
“Lyra.”
“I should kill you.”
This statement settled in the air for a moment.
Then Quentax said, “Lyra, the lottery is strictly voluntary. We would never ‘take’ your child from you. Never. It just doesn’t happen like that. Never has.”
‘Never take your child from you’ got through. She dimly assimilated it through her bubbling rage. Her feeling of sickness and panic dipped, ever so slightly. She felt a head rush from the raging storm of emotions. It was tiring. Her lip started to tremble, as her fists shook. She could feel her eyes welling up, and she fought hard to contain it.
Quentax was silent for a long moment as Lyra, standing up with her back turned to him, started to sob uncontrollably.
She cried for her Elora. For their hunger and poverty. She cried for the toys she couldn’t afford to buy, and the broken wrist, and the bread ration cut, and lugging around fucking pallets of priceless lumber, and living in misery every day. She was tired, and hungry, and dirty and poor, and so she cried and cried. The gravity of it all was finally pulling her down.
Quentax sat in deferential silence. He let her let it all out.
“Lyra…” he eventually said, as gently and softly as he possibly could.
“We wish to take all of you to the belt, for an easier life. But it is not possible. We are hostages to the situation as much as you are. Firstly, you are too old. The adults in the caps are adapted to living here. Your bodies can’t function more than a couple of weeks in Low G, at best, and even then, you can only visit once every seven years. The children? Well… they can adapt. But if we sent all of the children from here to the belt, society here would collapse. And if society collapses here… society will then collapse in the belt too. We are all trapped.”
She understood this logic. She knew all about the lottery. She had heard this all a million times. Some people dreamt of sending their children away to live a better life in the belt. They dreamt that their children would win the lottery. And of course Lyra wanted Elora to have a better life too, she was no different from any other parent in that respect. Don’t all parents just want their children to have a better life?
But sending Elora away from her? She dreaded it.
Lyra felt that it was terribly cruel to dangle this in front of her. She had grown comfortable not being disappointed by her own lack of expectations. Now she was being tormented by this wealthy stranger.
“We offer her a place,” repeated Quentax. “An opportunity for a better life in Colony 16.”
“You are asking me to hand my child over to you.”
“Not if you don’t want to. I am only presenting you with a possibility. What you decide to do is your choice, and your choice only.”
“No.”
“You would be giving her the chance to experience a life free of poverty and hardship. And you would not be saying goodbye forever. You would of course be able to see her at any time.”
“Once every seven years.”
He said nothing at this.
“The answer is no.”
There was silence.
“Have a think about it, Lyra. I do not ask you to do anything you do not wish. I… understand that this is not an easy decision to make.”
Lyra wiped her face. Her eyes were puffy and red. She still had venom in her voice.
“You understand nothing. Damn you.”
Another silence. Quentax sat thoughtfully for a second.
“I am leaving for the Equatorial Belt again in two days from now. I would like to offer you both the chance to come with me, for a temporary visit, before you make a final decision. I want you to see the conditions in the belt, so you can better understand what we are offering Elora.”
“To hell with you.”
Lyra left the warehouse in a hurry. The meeting with Quentax had left her urgently wanting to grab her daughter and hold her tight.
As she made her way down through the filthy corridors of the commercial sector, the stench of the homeless hit her. Several figures were sprawled out along the gangway on the floor; the flickering halogen light above illuminating them momentarily and then casting them into silhouette.
“Spare a credit?” One destitute voice asked as she walked by. She quickened her pace and felt her muscles cramp in protest.
“Madam, any chance that you could buy me something to eat?” Lyra fixed her gaze firmly ahead, and suddenly became aware of the rumbling in her own stomach. The next pathetic figure sitting on the gangway wasn’t so polite. The drunken voice called out.
“Hey, sexy bitch”
“Fuck you.”
Lyra was sitting with Elora in the cramped living room.
Her daughter wasn’t aware of it, but she inadvertently hurt her mother’s feelings.
“Mummy!”
“How's my baby?”
“I’m hungry, Mummy, my tummy hurts.”
‘My tummy hurts.’ It was a feeling Lyra was only too familiar with – the pangs of hunger. She always tried to do everything in her power to prevent her daughter from feeling that same awful feeling, and it pained her to know that she had failed. That’s what it was, Elora’s hunger made Lyra feel like an utter failure.
“Let me see if I can get you something to eat.”
She rummaged around and pulled a tin from one of the head cabinets. It was a gelatine substance, enriched with vitamins and amino acids. Hardly appetising. “Ah, look at this!” She said with her best attempt at optimism.
She cracked it open, placed it on a silicon carbide plate, and stuck it in the microwave. As the microwave hummed into action, she turned to her daughter, who was sitting on the floor cross-legged.
Pushing her sadness down, Lyra made her best attempt at a smile, and in a friendly voice said: “And how was school today, my darling?”
“Not good.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like Tarxin anymore. He’s stupid.”
The microwave made a loud pinging sound. Lyra unthinkingly took the plate out, placed it on the table, and with a heave, lifted her daughter up onto a chair, her back groaning with pain as she did so.
Elora began to pick at her food thoughtfully, and then took several nibbles. Lyra took a seat next to her, patiently watching her daughter take a few mouthfuls of the disagreeable substance and chew. Her own stomach growled aggressively. She tried to put the bread ration cut out of her mind.
Her daughter looked kind of tragic, with her fractured hand in a cast, fumbling to hold the spoon with her other hand. Breathing heavily under the High G. Shabbily dressed. Lyra wanted to pick up her daughter and kiss her. She wanted to squeeze her and tell her how much she loved her. How she was her whole world. How she was trying, really she was. She wanted to give her all of the things possible for a happy life. She was doing her best. She was a good mother. As long as they had love they would be all right. Did Elora have any idea how much Lyra adored her? How much she wanted to give her the best life?
She said nothing. She sat and watched her daughter eat the horrible food. She ignored her own hunger pangs. She hid her misery.
She let her Elora eat for a minute more before attempting to pick up the thread.
“What happened with Tarxin? Did he call you horrible names?”
“No.”
“Then what is it, my love?”
“He wouldn’t let me play with his magbricks.”
“Ah. I see. You didn’t ask him if he would share?”
“He told me to get my own toys and stop asking for his all the time.”
A silence followed this.
“Mummy?”
“Yes my darling?”
“Why can’t you buy me some magbricks?”
“Elora, my darling, we've been through this. They are too expensive, I'm afraid. We can’t afford them at the moment.”
“It’s not fair. I hate you!”
What can a parent say when their child tells them that they hate them? Lyra understood that Elora didn’t really mean this, but that didn’t make it sting any less. She understood Elora’s frustration.
“Maybe one day, my darling.”
Elora shrugged and folded her arms angrily.
“That’s what you always say.”
A heavy silence followed.
Elora, with arms folded, was deep in thought, about her day in school, about her hunger, about not having any toys.
“Mummy?”
“Yes, darling?”
“The people in the Equatorial Belt, do they live like us?”
“Well… not exactly, darling. You see, this planet is a funny shape. And it spins very, very fast. It's quite unique actually. Different to most of the other planets. So the gravity at the Equator is much weaker than here at the North Pole.”
“Does that mean the people are weaker too?”
“Well, yes, darling. We are stronger than the Equatorials.” She started to stroke her daughter’s hair, absentmindedly. “Because we have stronger gravity pulling at us all day.”
“I’m not sure that I want to be stronger,” said Elora. “It hurt me all the time.”
“Don’t worry about it, darling,” said Lyra, in a futile attempt to assuage this obvious fact.
“Mummy?”
“Elora?”
“Is it true that the Equatorials can fly?”
Lyra smiled. “No, darling, that’s just a myth. They float in their cities – they don’t fly.”
They were quiet for a while.
“Mummy?”
“Yes?”
“Are the Equatorials poor like us? Do they go hungry?”
Lyra bit down hard on the interior of her cheeks to stop her mouth from moving. She tried to slow her breath down. Her eyes started to feel watery again. She rose and gently turned away from the table before her daughter could notice.
“Mummy?”
“I’ll be back in a minute, darling. Eat your food,” she said with a wobbling and cracking voice.
When she emerged from the bathroom again, she was more serious and back in control of herself. She looked her daughter gravely in the eye.
“Elora, darling. There’s something I need to ask you.”
“What is it, Mummy?”
She held her daughter’s hand. “Let’s imagine that you could go and live in the belt. Would you like to go?”
“Would I get to fly?”
“To float, darling!”
“To float?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But I’m from the caps.”
“Let’s imagine that you could go. You wouldn’t be poor. You would always have food, and you would have toys, and life would be easy.” Her voice started to wobble but she tried to keep it under control. “You would grow up to be weaker – but you would live a much longer life, and it would be a comfortable life. Would you go?”
Elora was quiet for a moment. No doubt her little head was full of luxurious dinners and toys and people flying and floating around.
“The Equatorials are tall and funny-looking. I’ve seen pictures. Would I be tall too?”
“Yes, yes you would,” spluttered Lyra, in an unexpected laugh, as she tried to choke back her sadness at the thought of Elora being there, and not here with her.
“Could I take you with me, Mummy? Could we go together?”
Damn.
“Well… I would come and visit you, my love.” (Once every seven years, she thought).
“I don’t know, Mummy. I’m not sure.”
“Me neither, love,” said Lyra, half to herself.
She needed to give Quentax her answer. She knew he was only around for one more day, and he was waiting…
Then, after a moment,
“Elora, my love?”
“Yes”
“How would you like to go on a journey with Mummy?”
“A journey? What kind of journey?”
Lyra sniffled and rubbed her eye.
“A visit to a special place. It will be like an adventure.”
120°
It was approximately a two-hour flight to Colony 16. Lyra and Elora were seated next to one another in the passenger capsule; their over-the-shoulder restraints locked into place. It was nighttime and a single long strip of halogen illuminated the passengers. Elora’s little hands clutched nervously at the restraints, and Lyra placed her own hand gently over her daughter’s.
“We are now approaching Mach 3.8. 4,700 kilometers per hour,” a crackly voice announced through the speakers.
Seated amongst them in the capsule were perhaps fifteen strangers. Two or three Equatorials; their long, gangly forms protruding from the restraints. And then perhaps about eleven or twelve other passengers, their shabby complexion and their short, blocky, muscular limbs immediately marking them out as Polar Cap citizens.
To the left of Lyra was Quentax. He tapped her shoulder with his big, fragile hand and turned to her.
“Don’t be alarmed, but you will feel the change. It's all right. Some unusual sensations, but you are not in any danger.”
And she did feel the change. It was slow and subtle at first, but as the capsule hurtled towards the equator, Lyra experienced sensations that she had never felt before in her life.
It was as if an oppressive cloud of dull, aching pain that she had always felt, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, was being lifted away in little ebbing increments, second by second, and minute by minute. After about ten minutes, she started to become aware that the pressure in her neck and spine was relaxing. Her legs felt less and less heavy. About fifteen minutes after that, she started to notice that breathing wasn’t so hard and her ribs didn’t hurt as much.
“Mummy, I feel funny.”
Lyra turned to her daughter and gently rubbed her arm. She took her hand and held it firmly.
“It’s all right my love.”
There was a dull click, and the halogen light shut off, leaving the capsule and its occupants plunged into a dim grey.
“I’m scared.”
“Shhh, Mummy’s here. It’s all right, don’t worry. It’s perfectly normal, in fact, it’s part of the adventure! Look out the window, Elora!”
Elora gazed out the window. It was dawn. She could make out the pockmarked surface in the distance below them. Mountains, craters and various rock formations. All uninhabited. The sun was currently nothing more than a very dimly discernible glow behind the horizon. The surface was bathed in the grey of dawn, and the craggy textures of the rocks could just barely be made out, even as they hurtled by. But the sun was already moving.
“Wow!” said Elora.
And sure enough, there was a flickering brightness for perhaps a second as the sun broke over the horizon, and then it was gliding upwards in the sky. It moved quickly, fast enough for the human eye to perceive.
Over about the space of fifteen minutes, Lyra held her daughter’s hand, and they observed the sun as it slid dramatically across the sky, sending deep, enormous shadows dancing across the surface of the rocky terrain.
At long length, Lyra felt herself to be light in her seat. She had the sensation that she would float away uncontrollably were it not for the over-the-shoulder restraints. Thus, something that seemed like an oppressive nuisance only an hour earlier suddenly made its purpose known. She let her legs dangle from her chair and felt their airy sensation. Then she felt her stomach lurch a little bit.
180°
The arrival of the passengers was a mess of nauseous Polar Cap citizens eagerly attempting to file their way out of the capsule, flailing and falling, only to be helped up by one or two graceful Equatorials, and rising again to launch themselves clumsily forward.
Elora and Lyra were the last to step out. Both wobbled forward uncontrollably. The spindly arms of Quentax, which had seemed so frail to Lyra in the warehouse, now demonstrated their dexterity as he clamped down on their arms and pulled them downwards to the ground, steadying them.
“Easy… It’s better to start with steady small steps. Try not to push too hard and hold on to my arm.”
A couple of flailing attempts later, and they were eventually able to control their gait to an extent. Each push was absolutely effortless and carried the body a leaping distance forward. Lyra felt like a spring. Elora never let go of Quentax’s arm.
“Follow me,” Quentax said.
The plazas and pavilions of Colony 16 did not disappoint. The first thing Lyra observed was how open and spacious everything was. The air was so easy to breathe, and the subterranean chamber was massive and well lit. Buildings were tall and vertical in design, in contrast to the squat, robust domes and chambers of Polar Cap North. Some buildings had doors several stories up, where a window would normally be.
Between the buildings were greater, wider open spaces. Railings and hook-like articulations protruded from not only street corners, but scaled up the vertical faces of buildings and even the chamber ceilings. People were able to travel by semi-leaping and gliding forward.
It was the first time Lyra had ever seen so many Equatorials in one place. Sloping shoulders and wiry, sinewy muscles; all a foot taller than her at least. The clothing too was striking. Elegant, silky fabrics, multicoloured, ebbed and flowed as the people glided about their business.
As they made their way through a promenade, the signs of opulence and wealth were everywhere. Benches made from wood lined the streets. Wooden doors on houses. Silken curtains behind the windows. Bioplastic statues of twisted, contorted humanoid forms lined the junctions, and in open spaces, Lyra saw plants growing. Hanging coniferous ferns draped down from raised platforms. A water fountain. The water spurted upwards, and then gently floated back down!
One woman in the distance, on the opposite side of the chamber, kicked off on the pavement. She glided forward about ten meters, throwing her slender body forward several more meters with each springy kick, and then, after several kicks, grabbed a hook protrusion and launched herself upwards into the air. At the apex of her leap, she grabbed hold of another hook on the face of a building, and pulled herself further up vertically. She then grabbed another hook, and then another, until she had scaled four stories of the surface of the building. She perched in a porthole at the top where a door was, approximately one hundred meters above the ground, like some kind of arboreal creature, and knocked on it.
Lyra clumsily tried to match the pace of Quentax. Her limbs were short and squat, and she lacked the coordination to move properly and stumbled and flailed around mid-leap. Quentax caught her and steadied her again.
“Where are we going?”
“I am taking you to one of our educational facilities. I want you to see how our young are treated. And… there is somebody I’d like you to meet.”
Quentax, Lyra and Elora were greeted by a beautiful older woman, perhaps in her early fifties, at the entrance of the school.
“Hello again Jestax.”
“Ambassador.”
The woman strode over to them with the same easiness that Lyra was becoming accustomed to amongst the Equatorials. Like Quentax, her limbs were slender, and the fabrics that she wore flowed about her as she moved. Her greying hair was grown long, but tied up in a neat bun at the top of her head. A few wrinkles were visible around her blue eyes, but despite her age, this woman had a look of serenity about her.
“Hello, Lyra. I am Counsellor Jestax. I work with lottery arrivals to Colony 16. I hope Quentax has been treating you well?”
“He has been very good.”
“It is quite a huge adaptation… moving around in Low G. Many visitors find it to be quite a shock, but you are in good hands with Quentax.”
“And you must be Elora. Hello Elora! I love your pretty eyes!”
Elora slunk away immediately behind her mother’s leg and clutched the ragged fabric. Then she slowly popped her head out from behind Lyra and permitted a timid “Thank you.”
Quentax turned to Lyra and said informatively: “The installations we have here are state-of-the-art. Counsellor Jestax heads a team of very capable teachers and social workers to integrate the newcomers.”
Jestax smiled gently.
“If it’s all right with you, Lyra, before Quentax shows you both to your accommodation on-site, I would first like to take you around the school and have a look around. Perhaps we can observe some of the classes in session.”
“Of course, that’s fine.”
Quentax and Jestax exchanged a look.
“And with your permission, Lyra, I would like to take Elora to meet some of the other children in the infant class. If you agree, of course.”
Lyra turned and looked at Quentax. He nodded reassuringly.
“It’s quite all right. We would leave her in a classroom in the care of Jestax and then come and collect her after I have shown you the rest of the school.”
“I suppose that’s okay.”
Jestax nodded and turned to Elora. Stooping down to her level, she smiled compassionately. “Elora, would you like to play with a toy?”
Elora removed her pudgy hand from her mouth. “You have a toy?”
“Look at this.” Jestax placed a hand inside the draping cloth of her lapel and pulled out a small object which fit neatly in the palm of her hand. It was small, round and metallic, with a long ribbon-like material tethered to it, like the tail of a comet.
“It’s called a Sky-Ribbon. This one is my daughter’s.”
Carefully, Jestax unwound the ribbon from the circle-like object and held it tightly between her slender thumb, index finger and middle finger. Then she launched the metallic ball from her palm into the air, maintaining her grip on the tether.
Elora watched with fascination. As soon as the object left Jestax’s grip, it flickered into life, glowing a deep red momentarily, then purple, transitioning into blue. The transition effect began in the ball and rippled down the ribbon. The whole toy seemed alive, like some kind of jellyfish.
The ball reached the apex of its journey, then half fell, half floated back down. As it did so, Jestax jolted the ribbon again and again with short, sharp precision twitches of her hand. The ball was pulled upwards, backwards, and forwards, its tail thrown into elaborate looping patterns in each case. Each jolt from Jestax initiated a change in colour of the object, and it oscillated through the entire spectrum, a rainbow of deep hues, dancing and fluttering and floating in the air.
Elora was delighted.
Presently Jestax pulled sharply on the tether, and the object came floating back down into the palm of her hand.
“Would you like to try?”
Elora took the toy with eager, clumsy hands.
“Here, like this…”
Clasping her hands around Elora’s, she steadied her wrists as she launched the Sky-Ribbon up in the air. It floated up, and then, as she had seen Jestax do, Elora yanked on the ribbon. The object jolted and changed colour in response. Elora smiled. A few more tugs, and the Sky-Ribbon performed its dance. Not the elaborate looping spectacle of before, but a janky, awkward lurch.
“It takes some getting used to,” said Jestax, as she caught the object and placed it in Elora’s palm. Maintaining her enormous hand gently clasped around Elora’s, she said, “Would you like to come with me, Elora? I can take you to play with some other children your age while Mummy talks to Quentax. I have other toys I can show you too.”
Elora hesitated for a moment. Still holding Jestax’s hand, she looked at Lyra.
“It's okay, my darling. You can go with the nice lady. I will see you later.”
Elora let go of Jestax’s hand momentarily and hugged her mum. Then she turned back to Jestax, who smiled reassuringly at Lyra.
“We will catch up with you both shortly.”
Lyra watched them walk off in the direction of the nursery.
“Come with me,” said Quentax. “There is more I want to show you.”
240°
There were perhaps twenty adolescent students in the classroom, roughly fifteen or sixteen years old. They were seated in harnesses not dissimilar to the ones in the passenger capsule, with over-the-head restraints. These harnesses looped over their shoulders and locked them into place on their stools. Lyra noticed that their stools were high and didn’t touch the ground, so that their legs and arms dangled out from their restraints. Their extremities were elongated, but not to the extent of the adults that she had encountered.
The students each had an electronic pad built into the desk that was fastened in front of their restraints. It was all quite alien to the tables and stools of Polar Cap North. At the back of the room sat the teacher, perched on a stool which was bolted to the ground. Behind her on the board was an image. Lyra recognised it to be the planet.
Quentax had knocked on the door politely, and the teacher smiled obligingly as they entered. They stood silently in the doorway to observe, and the teacher resumed where she had left off before the interruption.
“...anyone? Lonbas?”
“3000km?”
“No.”
At that moment, the teacher turned her attention to two boys who were whispering to one another about the intrusion of the strangers into their class.
“Haven, perhaps you can tell me the radius of our planet?”
“I’m sorry, Ms Yartiv. I wasn’t listening.”
“Indeed you weren’t. Who else has their hand up? Yes, Pertak again?”
“6000km.”
“That’s correct.”
“So as I was saying… a radius of 6000km, and extremely dense; composed mostly of heavy metals, with a massive iron core.”
A pause before moving on.
“Unlike the majority of celestial bodies, our planet is not a sphere in the typical sense, but rather an oblate spheroid. Can anyone remind me what an oblate spheroid is? How about you, Rotak?”
Rotak was slightly taken off guard by the question. He hadn’t been paying attention either. But he knew the answer.
“A squashed sphere… our planet is flattened at the north and south poles, and bulges outwards at the equator.”
“That’s exactly right. Quiet, you boys at the back. Now, Rotak, for an extra point, can you tell me why this is the case?”
“Our planet…” Rotak raised a hand in front of his chest as he composed his thoughts. Then curling his long fingers outwards: “spins abnormally fast. We complete one full rotation upon our own axis every three Motherworld hours.”
“Correct.”
“Ms Yartiv… this spin is the same force that makes the surface uninhabitable right? And causes the superstorms?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Ms Yartiv paused for a moment before going on. “If this planet spun any faster, it would quite likely rip itself apart. Bits of mantle would break off and perhaps form a ring in orbit around us.”
She got up from her stool to pace, or rather float, across the room.
“As Rotak was saying, the tremendous spin of our planet has caused its mass to bulge enormously at the equator and become greatly flattened at the poles. Consequently, the equator is much farther from the planet’s centre of mass, and its gravity is weaker. The polar caps…” She looked up at Lyra in the doorway, and several heads turned to follow their teacher’s gaze again to the blocky, squat outsider. “Are much closer to the centre, and their gravity is much stronger.”
“Can anyone tell me exactly how much G force is exerted at these extremes?”
Pertak’s hand shot up.
“Yes?”
“1.6G at the polar caps, and 0.5G here on the Equatorial Belt… 1G at the mid latitudes.”
“Well done Pertak.”
The presence of Lyra, while not unwelcome, had given Ms Yartiv cause to pause and think for a moment. She had heard, just as everyone else had, many things regarding the conditions in the polar colonies. This poor woman… If she were to try and stay permanently, she would die in the low gravity.
“The unique geography of our planet... has enormous societal consequences for all of us.”
“Ms Yartiv?”
“Yes Lonbas?”
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“We evolved on a 1G planet, right?”
“That is correct.”
“And the gravity on this planet is 1G at the mid-latitude regions, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then… Why don’t we just build habitats in that part of the planet and live there?”
“It's an excellent question Lonbas, I was wondering when someone would ask that.”
Ms Yartiv floated back into her chair. “Unfortunately, the extreme spin of our planet makes the mid-latitude regions tectonically volatile. The crust is unstable and we are unable to build inside it…”
Quentax turned to Lyra in a confidential tone. “Perhaps one day, some of these young bright things may grow up to put their mind to the problem of mid-latitude colonisation; a barrier that we have, as of yet, been unable to conquer.”
300°
Quentax and Lyra were sat in the dining room of the nursery. They were drinking a sweet liquid from containers. Quentax took a sip from his straw while Lyra played with hers idly.
They turned to look at Elora through the window. She was with Counsellor Jestax and several other children. They were laughing and playing catch with a ball, oblivious to the fact that they were being observed. Now Quentax stared down and started to fiddle with his straw idly.
“You know… I was about the same age Elora is now when I won the lottery.”
Lyra was flabbergasted at this.
“You won the lottery?”
“Yes. I’m originally from Polar Cap South… N13 Colony.” Quentax continued to fiddle gently with his straw. “I remember my house, but only very vaguely.” He gestured to the object in his hand. “I even remember drinking from cups without lids too… but most of all… I remember the pain. Constant pain of High G. The aching in the neck and spine.”
Lyra shuddered at this. He was describing sensations that she knew all too well.
“But when I left, and arrived here… It was like a different kind of pain. The pain of being away from my mother.”
“Do you… regret the decision that she made?”
“She left me in the most capable hands. This place is a paradise compared to the caps as you can well see. But we are fragile and weak here.” Quentax hesitated. “It’s only fair that I be honest with you, Lyra. The price to pay to send me to paradise was quite high. I never stopped missing her.”
Lyra looked at Elora chattering with the other children.
“Do you resent her decision?”
Quentax sighed. “She was trapped in Polar South. Too old to adapt. I, of course, am now unable to permanently go back. I understand that she sent me here because she wanted me to have a better life. The decision must have hurt her terribly.”
“Did you ever speak about it?”
“No.”
They were silent.
“You know… I am grateful to her. It took me many years to understand it, but she made a tremendous sacrifice for me. She renounced her own happiness in order to offer me a chance at happiness. I remember and honour that sacrifice, and love her for it.”
Quentax turned to Lyra. “I cannot tell you what to do, Lyra. This decision is yours and yours to make alone.”
They both regarded Elora playing with the ball.
“Look at her now. You know, just this morning she was crying. She told me that she was scared when we stepped into that capsule. Now look at her. Smiling and playing.”
Elora giggled as the ball was thrown to her. She hit it, and it gently bounced away from her, floating upwards. She laughed in delight.
“All that awaits her in Polar Cap North is a short, painful life, crushed under High G. She will work all her life in the warehouses or the mines, and then die in her late forties, if she is lucky. But the thought of sending her away…” Lyra’s lip began to tremble. “I can’t bear it.”
Quentax put his arm around Lyra. They watched on in silence.
The time that Lyra had been dreading couldn’t be prolonged any longer. It had followed her around, the entire stay, like a dark shadow. She had tried to push it further and further into the future… further and further out of her mind… but her stocky body would start breaking down if she stayed in the low gravity of the belt much longer. It was time for her to return, and she needed to decide if she was taking Elora with her.
What could she do? It was an impossible decision. It filled her with dread. Her stomach twisted and contorted. She wanted to scream with frustration every time she thought about it.
Should she let Elora decide? And if she did, would she be able to respect the decision of her child? If Elora wanted to come home with her mother, then Lyra would forever be racked with guilt. Guilt – over selfishly depriving her daughter of the better life she could have had.
But if Elora chose to stay… If she said that she wanted to live here, even if it meant leaving her Mother… well, the prospect of that was so terrible and horrifying that it didn’t bear thinking about. It would cut to the core of one of Lyra’s deepest and most profound insecurities – it would be the ultimate confirmation of Lyra’s utter failure as a mother.
She cursed the lottery. She hated the fucking lottery. And Quentax, that reluctant, compassionate man, that fucking prick, Quentax. She cursed him too. She cursed the sky, and the fucking planet.
But it changed nothing.
It wouldn’t make it any easier.
She still needed to make a decision.
So she screamed and shouted and went berserk, and she smashed up her accommodation and destroyed everything in the flimsy apartment.
And yet she still needed to make a decision.
So she did nothing, and tried to put it out of her head entirely.
And yet the decision still loomed.
And when she did eventually inform Quentax of her final decision, he understood. It gave him absolutely no pleasure. He nodded solemnly, but he knew better than to attempt to put his arm around Lyra now.
“Elora?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Have you enjoyed your stay? What do you think of this place? Do you like Colony 16?”
“I love it! It’s the best!”
“Really?”
“Yes, Mummy! I’ve made lots of friends! I have Prestix and Zertik and Wothril and Javil… and this morning they showed me their Sky-Ribbons, and they showed me how to glide better, and it’s so much fun! Look!”
Before Lyra could interrupt, Elora had already leapt up off of the ground, and turned in the air, gently landing on her good hand, and then, catching herself with surprising dexterity, executed another movement, flipping back onto her feet again. She was genuinely impressed.
“Wow! That’s amazing!”
“Isn’t it! It doesn’t hurt here. And I can breathe better and I’m not tired.”
“That’s wonderful.” She knelt down to eye level with her daughter. “That’s wonderful, but I need to talk to you very seriously for a moment. You know that tomorrow is our final day here, right?”
The smile disappeared from Elora’s face before Lyra had even finished the sentence. She was eager to finish it. “But…” she took a deep breath and felt the anxiety and tension in her body. “But… How would you like to stay here?”
Elora clasped her hands together in delight. “Can I really? Really, really?”
“Yes. I’ve already spoken to Quentax. You can stay.”
“Yay! I can stay!”
“Yes, that’s right! You will live here, in the accommodation of the school, with Jestax.”
This puzzled her.
“But wait… what about you, Mummy? You will stay with me too, right?”
A pause for a moment.
“Elora, my sweetheart, you know that Mummy’s bones and organs are not able to withstand Low G. I’m too old to adapt to conditions here. I have to go back tomorrow or I will get very poorly and never recover.”
“But… I don’t understand. You go back… and I stay here?”
“Yes.”
“... Without you?”
“I’m sorry, Elora. I want to look after you here but I can’t stay.”
Elora was incredulous for a moment. It was all so unusual and strange. She didn’t seem to comprehend. Then the horrible silence impressed it upon her. Her mother was very serious and sad-looking and wasn’t smiling, and that meant that it was real and really real. Mummy looked horribly sad. So then her little imagination filled with thoughts of her mother vanishing and leaving her alone, isolated. Abandoned. And she broke into a flood of tears.
Elora’s cries were like daggers to her mother’s heart.
“Shhh, my love,” Lyra tried to take Elora’s little hand but she snatched it away. With tiny fists, amidst the sobbing and wailing, she thumped Lyra’s chest. Lyra’s gut wrenched.
“You want to leave me here!”
“No! No, my love! No. Look at me. No. Look at me, Elora! I want you to have a good life. A better life than I had. I don’t want you to work in a mine or a warehouse all your life. I want you to be happy, Elora. You will be happy here. You like it here, understand? This place is better! Quentax and Jestax will look after you, and I will be able to visit! But I can’t… look after… you here, I’m sorry. And I…” now Lyra was blubbering too. She was looking directly at her daughter and sobbing. The intensity of it made Elora sob all the more. “I… I… can’t look after you there either. Not really. Just... barely. The best.. thing I can do for you.. the best thing… the best thing,” she was spluttering between fits of tears and could barely get the words out. “The best thing, I... can... do... for... you... is... send... you... here.”
“Mummy!” The look on Elora’s face was of pure bafflement and sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Elora!”
She pulled her daughter into her, and hugged her as tightly as she could. Elora wriggled and sobbed, and then stopped fighting. They held each other and cried. Neither one of them wanted to ever let go.
Lyra held on to her daughter. Held on to the moment. She wondered if she would ever be forgiven for this. She wondered if she would ever be understood.
360°
“Diamond delivery for Section B-19.”
“Invoice please, let me sign that. You got a stylus?”
“Here’s the fucking stylus.”
Lyra was sitting alone in her home. The microwave clicked. She took her plate, heaved over to her seat, and stared at it. There was absolutely no appetite to eat. The chair in front of her was empty. Her chest felt tight. Her lip started to tremble and her eyes welled up. It came bursting forth uncontrollably and continued until her ribs hurt. She was inconsolable.
One by one, she loaded the tungsten rods onto the pallet. Her body felt even heavier than before. Her muscles groaned under the strain.
“Breathe in,”
“Heave,”
“Breathe out.”
She looked around the empty house. Elora’s absence permeated everything. On the mantelpiece, there was a picture of her daughter. She picked it up.
“Perhaps you will hate me for this, my love… or perhaps, one day, you will understand.”
She kissed the photo and held it close to her chest.
“Seven years.”