Earth 2788 Read Free

a
graphic shudder of disgust, and I wondered what she’d think if she knew two of them were sitting only a few chairs away from her. I was tempted to go over and tell
her what I was. I wanted to see the look of horror on her face and laugh at
her, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t just be me who got into trouble for sneaking
in here, but Issette as well.
    The couple
lapsed into sulky silence. I tried to forget them, and sat watching the people
arriving from other worlds. Issette was studying their clothes, but I was
looking at their faces. Most of them were coming over to the waiting area, so
Earth was just one step on their journey. I concentrated on the ones heading
for the exit, the ones who were actually visiting Earth, wondering what had
brought them to such an unpopular destination.
    Portal 4 flared
into life with a new incoming block portal, and a large group of people in
medical uniforms came through. One of Earth’s major specialities was medicine,
so these were probably off-world students here for part of their training.
Behind them walked a couple with two children, both girls.
    The older girl
was about my age. I pictured the life she had, and thought how it could have
been mine too if the genetic dice had landed differently. I could have been
growing up with a family on a distant world. I could have been portalling to
Earth for a visit. I could have had everything, instead of …
    Issette gave me
a painful jab with her elbow, and I turned to frown at her. “Ouch!”
    “Shhh,” she
hissed. “Look over there!”
    She was pointing
towards portal 7. Someone had obviously just arrived through it, because a set
of hover bags were still appearing. I watched them chase after their owner and
gather up in a group behind him, then looked at the owner himself and gasped.
He was young, attractive, and dressed in clinging clothes that showed bare
patches of skin in shocking places. I stared at him for a moment, totally
grazzed, before turning my head away.
    “He must be from
one of the planets in Beta sector,” said Issette, still happily studying him. “Nowhere
else has clothes like that. He’s got to be filthy rich to dial interstellar
instead of block portalling, so maybe he’s from their capital planet, Zeus.
He’s got nice legs, hasn’t he?”
    She was using
the polite word, “legs,” but I could tell from the way she said it that she
really meant a far more private area. I frowned at her. “Issette, behave
yourself!”
    She turned her
head for a second to give me a wicked grin, before staring at the man again. “It’s
not my fault he’s dressed like that, and everyone else is looking too.”
    I gave in to
temptation and had another look myself. The man did have extremely nice legs,
and you could see an awful lot of them! He was dark-haired, and I generally
preferred men with the much rarer blond hair, but in this case I could
definitely…
    At this point, a
security guard hurried up, threw a blanket round the man’s shoulders, and had a
whispered conversation with him. The man laughed, but nodded, and went off with
the blanket wrapped firmly round him.
    Issette sighed.
“Pity.”
    After that, we
watched a group of young people come through portal 2, chattering to each other
in the classic drawling voices of aristocratic Alphans. Judging from the
snatches of conversation I could hear, they were pre-history students returning
from a break on their home world. I was planning to study pre-history myself,
so I listened avidly, trying to work out which of Earth’s ruined cities they’d
be excavating. Since they’d portalled into Earth Europe Off-world, it was
probably London, Paris Coeur or Berlin. Madrid Main Dig Site was still closed
for clean up after an ancient storage facility had a major radioactive leak.
Rome didn’t accept students. Budapest was …
    I heard the
sound of someone shouting, and twisted round in my seat to look across at where
people were entering Earth Europe Off-world the legal way