Heart of Danger Read Free Page B

position of trust he’d held on Taris, brought sickness to my stomach. No matter how much I tried to tell myself that Thomas was just a kid, a ten-year-old kid, I couldn’t get beyond the fact that he was also Hilto’s son.
    The same old argument kept repeating itself in my mind: Hilto’s dead, he can’t influence Thomas any more .
    But he filled Thomas’s head with ideas of power before he died. That’s a lot of years in the life of a young boy.
    Thomas didn’t like his father any more than you did.
    He only started to hate him in the last few months. The damage to Thomas’s mind had been done by then.
    Maybe it’s up to you to change him.
    Thanks very much. I don’t think so! I don’t even want to look at him.
    I wished I could shut my mind off. All the arguments in the universe weren’t going to alter the fact that we were going to Fairlands, or that we were wise to go.
    But right after that thought came another, just as unwelcome: what if we were taking Hera into danger, rather than protecting her from it?
    I was frightened enough by that to still my mind, to search for a sense of whether we were doing the right thing. Nothing. I got no feeling, no inkling of right or wrong.
    I needed my learning stratum. Without them I felt exposed and alone. But I had to wait until Dad had finished with the mini-comp before I could try to call any of them.
    I tried Silvern first. She was online but wouldn’t take my call. Which meant she’d be talking to Paz. Right, I’d try him. But he ignored me too. I went back to Silvern. It took me six attempts before she finally answered.
    ‘This had better be good,’ she said, her furious face scowling from the tiny screen.
    I gulped. ‘Can you tell Paz to talk too. I …’
    ‘You’re crying? What … hang on, I’ll connect Paz.’
    I waited, wiping my eyes and sniffing.
    She came back online. ‘Tell. What’s happened?’
    Fear crashed at me but I managed to get the words out. ‘It’s Hera. She says she’s going away soon. She doesn’t like the people and none of us are with her. Willem says we have to go to Fairlands. Mother, Hera and I are going tomorrow. On the train.’
    Paz whistled. ‘Sheesh! You’ll be at school with Thomas.’
    ‘And Ivor the Gorgeous,’ Silvern said. ‘Get over it, Juno. Thomas is just a kid. He’s okay. It’s Hera you should be worrying about.’
    ‘I am!’ I snapped. ‘Why else d’you think I’m going? I haven’t even thought about Ivor being there.’
    ‘Well, your parents are going, so you’ve got no choice,’ she said.
    Why did I miss Silvern so much? She was infuriating.
    Paz said, ‘You know, I reckon we should have a catch-up every night now. To make sure Hera’s okay.’
    Silvern went right back to snappy. ‘And just how can we help? We’re stuck miles away from Hera and miles away from each other.’
    ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Can we do it? It helps to talk. I mean, we all know each other …’
    Silvern laughed. ‘And you were so keen to get to Outside where you could leave Taris in your dust.’ Then she relented. ‘Yeah, okay. I agree. We’ll arrange it Sunday night.’
    That had gone out of my head too – Marba’s command to have a stratum meeting via mini-comp every Sunday evening at nine.
    ‘Have you tried calling Marba?’ Paz asked. ‘In your head, I mean.’
    ‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘Dunedin’s miles away.’
    ‘Try,’ said Silvern, once again in snippy mode. ‘He’ll love it even if it doesn’t work.’
    Yeah, he would. Marba loved experiments, science and anything except emotions, which he just didn’t compute. But I didn’t want to try the mind call. It scared me, that power I didn’t understand.
    ‘Try it, Juno,’ Paz said. ‘It could be useful to know the range.’
    I couldn’t argue with that. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Hang about.’
    I turned away from the screen, stilled my mind, summoned up the fear I felt for my sister. That wasn’t difficult: it was there with