The Tundra Trials Page 6

  Leave it to Lucy to find room for drama even in her moment of panic. But it’s clear to me now. For Lucy, this isn’t about the space elevator. This is one of those big-picture Bounder moments. The kind when suddenly the enormity of your duty to wield dangerous technology, to fight in an alien war, to protect your planet, comes rushing at you without warning. I know because I’ve had those moments.

  Unfortunately, I’m not the best at pep talks, especially when I’m nearly on the ledge myself.

  A Tunneler from across the room runs over, waving her arms in much the same way Lucy was just waving hers. She’s wearing one of the sacks, but she’s tied a big rope around the middle. And the Earth Force insignia is sewn on the center of her chest. She’s hunched over like all the Tunnelers, but even if she stood straight, she wouldn’t be much taller than my waist.

  Ka. Ka. Ka.

  Voice box: “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  Lucy and I look at the Tunneler, then at each other, then at the Tunneler. Bewilderment must be written on both of our faces.

  Ka. Ka. Gareek. Keek. Keek. Arrrrgh.

  “Oh! Oh! Something must have gotten lost in translation.” The voice box can barely keep up with the Tunneler’s pace. “Are you not excited? I know I am. I can hardly believe I get to ride the space elevator! It’s my first time. Or, I mean, my second time. My first time was when I rode here this morning to wait for you. And I am so honored to meet you! And I hardly know what to say!”

  Whoa. I think I just met Tunneler Lucy.

  “Oh! Oh! Excuse my bad manners!” The Tunneler steps back and does a funky kind of curtsy. “My name is Neeka. My father is Commander Krag of Earth Force. And I am one of the junior ambassadors selected to be your guide. Welcome to Gulaga!”

  Neeka’s body trembles with excitement, and all of her Gulagan grunts are about an octave higher than the other Tunnelers’ voices.

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m Jasper, and this is Lucy.”

  “You’re a junior ambassador?” Lucy sounds distinctly less anxious.

  “Oh! Oh! Yes! It was very competitive. I had to go through five rounds of auditions. It probably helped that my father is an Earth Force officer, but that was only a plus factor. I still had to make it through all the callbacks on my own.”

  “Auditions?” Lucy asks, linking her arm around Neeka’s furry one. “Tell me more! I’d love to compare notes.”

  And just like that, Lucy makes a complete recovery. The two of them scurry off across the elevator bay, leaving me alone.

  I join Cole and Marco at the control panels where one of the Tunnelers is monitoring the progression of the cab from the planet’s surface. A timer counts down its arrival. Just over eight minutes. Shortly after, we’ll make our descent.

  “We have a Tunneler guide,” I tell them.

  “We know, News Flash,” Marco says. “She brought us here, remember?”

  “Not her. See the Tunneler with the belt talking to Lucy?” I nod at the window where Neeka and Lucy are still standing arm in arm. “Her name is Neeka, and she says she’s our junior ambassador.”

  “What’s a junior ambassador?” Cole asks.

  “No clue, but she seems young, maybe our age. And check this out, she’s like the Tunneler version of Lucy.”

  “Creepy,” Marco says.

  “Chatty,” I say.

  “That sounds entirely strange and unpleasant,” Cole says.

  Since we arrived, the bay has filled. There are dozens of Tunnelers milling about. Most of them carry small packs strapped to their backs. Since they’re so hunched over, the packs kind of make them look like furry turtles.

  Along the far wall, carts piled high with boxes and machinery stand ready to be rolled into the elevator cab. One of the carts has huge green bins with the word waste marked along the sides in white block letters.

  “What are those?” I ask Cole and Marco, nodding my head in the direction of the green bins.

  “Trash,” Cole says. “Even though most waste is recycled here at the dock, they must have some byproduct that needs to be removed.”

  “We’re riding with trash?” Marco says. “That’s disgusting.”

  “And it’s not even regular trash,” I say. “It’s trash made from trash.”

  “First-class trash,” Marco says.

  “Trash that refuses to be repurposed,” Cole says.

  “The very essence of trash, itself,” Marco says.

  “I bet it stinks,” I say.

  Just then a low alarm sounds and red lights along the circumference of the bay start to blink. A mechanical voice announces that the cab will be arriving in two minutes.

  Officers clear the area between the shaft door and the nearest hallway entrance. When the cab glides into the bay, Tunnelers push the line of carts onto the cab. Passengers queue behind them.

  “Let’s go!” Marco says. Cole and I tail after him to the back of the boarding line.

  Carts and belongings are stowed in a center cargo compartment. The perimeter is for passengers. The crowd rushes in, filling the space. There are elevated rows of seats that circle the cargo compartment, but up against the window is standing room only. The girls have already boarded. Lucy stands at the window with Neeka on one side and Mira on the other. We head in that direction.

  I slide in next to Mira. Cole and Marco stand beside me.

  Lucy and Neeka are talking so intently, neither seems to notice our arrival.

  Marco taps Lucy on the shoulder. “Introductions?”

  Ka! Kreek. Arrgh. Garrgareek.

  “Oh! Allow me. I’m Neeka, your junior ambassador. I simply can not contain how happy and excited I am to escort you through Gulagaven! You are in for a most delightful and wondrous time. Oh! Silly me! I forgot my courtesy. I did not ask your name. But there is no need. I know you must be Marco Romero. Oh! Oh! You are ever so tall!”

  “Ummm . . . yep, that’s me.” Marco points to me and Cole. “Jasper Adams, Cole Thompson. Now carry on with your girl talk.”

  Marco turns his back on Neeka and shakes his head. “You weren’t kidding, J-Bird. She’s like Lucy with a computerized voice and old folks’ vocabulary. Although I’m glad to hear we’re in for a delightful and wondrous time.”

  “Thanks for sparing us more talk,” Cole says.

  “Of course,” Marco says. “I’m ready to ride!”

  “Make sure to hold on, Cole says. “I’ve read it moves fast.”

  An automated speaker announces that we’re moments away from departure, and that any carry-on items should be secured in the storage areas. Beneath us, the planet looks like a giant walnut, and we’re a tall toothpick piercing its surface.

  “Here goes,” I whisper as I bump Mira’s shoulder. I grip the safety rail in front of me with my right hand.

  Mira drops her left hand from the bar and slyly links her little finger around mine. I don’t even need the brain connection to know she’s excited. We both are. I coil my pinkie tightly around hers.

  Three beeps sound in the cab. We drop a few meters, then the cab slowly turns, unwinding itself from its own safety guard, like the twisting of a bottle cap.

  I brace in anticipation and squeeze Mira’s finger.

  “Wait for it,” Cole says, bouncing on his toes. “Wait for it.”

  The cab stops turning, and for a moment it feels like we’re suspended in space with nothing at all to keep us anchored.

  Then we plummet.

  The gravity stabilizers in the floor fight with the laws of science that want to keep us stationary. I grab the rail with both hands, but still feel the pull. My feet push against the tops of my shoes. Even the skin on my face stretches toward my scalp. Meanwhile, we race through space, barreling toward the planet’s surface.

  This is awesome!

  “Woo-hoo!” I shout, joining the hoots and hollers of my pod mates.

  After we’ve been riding for several minutes, Cole leans over. “Remember your sister wanted me to hack that elevator joyride?”

  G
eez, that seems like forever ago. Was it only last week?

  “This is a million times better!” I say. “I can’t wait to tell Addy!”

  As we rush toward the planet’s surface—the great brown ball growing bigger and bigger beneath us—I think about my sister. I can’t believe how long it’s been since she popped into my brain. I must have intentionally shut her out. I don’t want to think of how mad she was the day I left. I don’t want to think about all the secrets I’ve kept from her, too. And I definitely don’t want to think about her coming to the Academy in the spring. Sure, she’ll love the gloves and the blast packs, and she’ll probably rule the girls’ dorm by the end of her first week, but I don’t want her to have to learn the truth. As much as this is awesome—and I know most of the kids on Earth would trade places with me in a millisecond for a ride on this elevator—it can’t cover up what’s waiting for us on the ground.

  That’s where our real military training will begin. In the tunnels and on the cold surface of Gulaga, far away from our cozy homes, Earth Force plans to mold us into soldiers.

  7

  THE CAB SLOWS AS WE approach the occludium shield. The gauzy silver haze floats just above the atmosphere. When we cross through, the cab shutters, but it’s the air, not the occludium, that causes the disturbance. For objects like the space elevator, occludium is just a veil to pass through. If we were trying to bound, that would be a different story.

  With every second, we get closer to the surface of Gulaga. The elevator shaft is built into the foundation of the planet’s main settlement, Gulagaven. It’s the only place on the planet where modern, Tunneler-made structures appear on the surface. Still, there isn’t much to see. From above, Gulagaven looks about as big as the Earth Force aeroport off the coast of Americana East. Even though I know the diameter of the subterranean metropolis stretches far beyond the surface structures, and Gulagaven descends several kilometers into the belly of the planet, it doesn’t look like much of a city from here. In fact, except for the small radius around the elevator shaft, all I can see in any direction are rocky plains of packed dirt.

  Next to the shaft is a small base and aeroport for traditional aircraft and hovers. There are no bounding ships, of course. All of the quantum ports were relocated to the space dock when the occludium shield was installed. Exhaust vents extend out of the ground, discharging the stale air from the tunnels and sucking in a fresh supply. Tiny egg cars like the ones we saw on the Paleo Planet are parked in a row near the paved channels leading to the occludium mines.

  The leaf systems we saw from above stretch across the cold and rocky surface. Now that we’re getting closer, they don’t look much like leaves. They’re thick and furry, and each one is almost as big as a hover. They’re supported by scaffolding and protected by a clear shield that probably provides some warmth while still allowing access to the limited light.

  As we finish our descent, I’m more aware of what’s not on the surface. For starters, there’s not much that looks like Earth. This definitely isn’t the Paleo Planet. But what’s even more noticeable is that there’s not a single Tunneler anywhere.

  “How come no one’s out and about?” I ask.

  “Out and about?” Neeka asks. “Right now no one’s out because it’s after curfew. And no one just hangs out on the surface. If you’re aboveground, it’s for a reason . . . unless you’re one of the Wackies who live on the tundra.”

  “Wackies?” Marco asks.

  “Oh! Oh! Never mind. That definitely was on the list of things junior ambassadors are absolutely not supposed to talk about. Just pretend I never even said the word Wackies, okay? Nope, you didn’t hear about Wackies from me. Even though I have no idea why it matters if we mention that some crazy old Tunnelers insist on living on their own, outside of Gulagaven. I told them I didn’t see why it would matter. But they insisted. Absolutely no mention of the Wackies.”

  “Who told you not to tell us?” I ask.

  “They’re a breakaway group?” Cole asks.

  “Cool,” Marco says. “You have rebels.”

  “Oh! Oh! I never said anything about rebels. I just said . . .”

  “Neeka!” Lucy says. “Quiet! Don’t let these boys bait you into telling them this stuff. Maybe you should try to be a little less like me and a bit more like Mira.”

  Mira gives a quick glance at Neeka and smiles.

  Neeka shakes with the effort of not talking, but she manages. For about a second.

  “Fine,” Marco says. “Forget the Wackies. What’s up with the curfew?”

  Neeka lets out an enormous breath of relief. “It’s a strict rule. Following the afternoon bell, no one is allowed on the surface. The temperatures drop too low for anyone to be out safely.”

  As we talk, the cab travels the rest of the distance to the surface. Then, for several meters, the walls of the vertical tunnel are all that’s visible out the window. The slick surface looks like garden-variety mud.

  “What’s up with the walls?” Marco asks. “Are they wet?”

  “Oh! No! Ha! Ha!” Neeka says. “That’s not water, it’s an adhesive. It makes the walls stronger.”

  “So, like, sticky mud?” I ask.

  “Not mud,” Lucy says, rolling her eyes. “An adhesive. Kind of like clear nail polish, right, Neeka? You know, top coat? That’s what it looks like to me, anyway.”

  “Maybe,” Neeka says. “I’m not sure what nail polish is.”

  “OMG!” Lucy says. “You don’t know about nail polish? Well, then I’ll have to . . .”

  Lucy is off and chatting a mile a minute. She has Neeka’s paw in her hand and is suggesting colors that will bring out the auburn undertones in Neeka’s fur. I’d say I feel sorry for Neeka, but she looks like she’s loving it. In all the universe, Lucy has found her true soul mate.

  I tune out the girl talk and tune in to my surroundings. The cab enters a metal chamber and slows to a stop. Mechanical arms extend from the sides of the chamber and secure to the cab. The lift mechanism disengages from above. The mechanical arms drop the cab into a grooved channel, and we rotate the remaining meters of our descent, like the unscrewing of a bottle top.

  We spin into an elevator bay very similar to the one we left behind at the space dock, although the walls are made of that adhesive mud rather than clear plastic. Earth Force officers—both humans and Tunnelers—busy about the bay, checking gauges and computer readings. One monitor shows the space dock. Another shows the entire elevator shaft stretching up from Gulaga. We came a long way.

  “Oh! Oh! I am so excited to show you around!” Neeka says.

  Neeka’s excitement is contagious. I’m super fired up to see Gulagaven, and I’m psyched to have a Tunneler tour guide, even if it comes with way more girl talk than I typically tolerate.

  “What is your job as a junior ambassador, anyway?” Cole asks.

  “Oh! A junior ambassador is paired with each EarthBound Academy pod. We are supposed to escort you through Gulagaven, assist in adjustment to life in the tunnels, answer any questions, and make sure you keep out of all restricted areas. Did I just say that last part out loud? Oops! Oh! No! Father will be most upset!”

  “Her father is an Earth Force officer,” Lucy says.

  “Restricted areas, huh?” Marco shoots me a mischievous grin.

  Poor Neeka. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.

  “Why don’t they call it Gulaga Force?” I ask.

  Neeka tips her snout in a way that reminds me of shrugging.

  “Is there a separate Gulaga Force?” Lucy asks.

  “No, just Earth Force.”

  “What about your Gulagan government?” Cole asks. “I thought you were governed by a parliament.”

  “It’s just Earth Force now,” Neeka says.

  “You don’t even have your own government?” Marco says.

  “Oh! Oh! You boys are baiting me again. This kind of talk is definitely on the restricted list. As my father would say, you’re starting to so
und just like the Wackies! Come on! We’re unloading! Let’s go!”

  Neeka and Lucy head for the door with Cole and Marco on their heels. Mira and I follow a few paces behind. Neeka seemed to blow off the fact that Gulaga doesn’t have its own government, but it left me unsettled. Why would the Tunnelers allow Earth Force to govern? They don’t even govern on Earth. Sure, the Force is pretty powerful, but Earth has actual elected leaders who are entirely independent. At least, that’s what I’ve always thought. It’s what I was taught to believe. Who knows what’s really true anymore?

  When we asked about the government, Neeka let it slip that we sound just like the Wackies. Is that why the Wackies left Gulagaven? Maybe they’re not so wacky after all.

  I shake my head, trying to toss those thoughts out of my brain. I don’t want to be distracted while we explore. But the thoughts are pretty hard to shake. Mira links her arm with mine as we head for the elevator exit, and a strange feeling washes over me. Kinship? Whatever it is, I think Mira is having a hard time shaking the troubling thoughts about Gulagaven, too.

  We follow the line of exiting passengers out of the bay and into a connected waiting room. The line falls apart, and there’s a big crush of people near the door. Most of the Tunnelers aren’t wearing voice boxes, but I know they’re annoyed because of all the grunting and jostling.

  “What’s happening?” Lucy asks.

  “Same thing that always happens when Earthlings visit Gulagaven for the first time,” Neeka says. “Five new Earth Force officers were on the elevator, too. And from the looks of this foot traffic, I’d say they’re the problem.”

  “What do you mean, Gula Gal?” Marco asks.

  “This is a spectator delay,” Neeka says. “And what’s a Gula Gal?”

  “Ignore him, sweetie,” Lucy says, before turning to Marco. “Shut it, Tofu Face!”

  I don’t have to wait long to discover what Neeka was talking about. The crowd starts moving, and we’re funneled out of the waiting room.

  Three Tunnelers stand guard in front, directing the crowd left and right. The one in the center is an Earth Force officer and wears a voice box: “Proceed with caution. Gulagaven does not have guardrails. Please use extreme care at all times.”