“Now get yourself back to the dormitory. You need to eat something before afternoon class. And the longer you put off talking to your clanmates, the longer they will want to talk.”
—
The afternoon class for Dellian’s year was held in the Five Saints Hall, which sat at the western end of the estate, a good five-minute walk from the dormitory domes. He always enjoyed the stories they heard in the Five Saints Hall, because they were always about the Five Saints, who one day would defeat the enemy.
“How’s the nose?” Janc asked as they sauntered along the palm-lined path. The fronds were just stirring above their heads, a sign of the evening breeze starting its daily journey along the massive valley from the sea.
Dellian just managed not to touch it in reflex. “Okay, I guess.”
“Saints, I still can’t believe you didn’t get detention!”
“Yeah, me too.” He saw the three girls up ahead, keeping together like they always did. “Catch you later.”
The girls turned as one when he called out. Tilliana and Ellici gave Yirella knowing looks. For a moment Dellian thought she might not stop, or worse, the others would wait with her. Thankfully, they walked on.
“Sorry,” he said as he caught up.
“For what?”
He looked up into her heart-shaped face, troubled that she was treating him like this. They normally got on so well. Girls were all destined to be smart—a lot smarter than boys, Alexandre had explained; it was how their genes were sequenced. But he just knew Yirella was going to be the smartest of them all. Having her as a special friend was something he didn’t want to lose. “Are you angry with me?”
She sighed. “No. I know why you did it, and I am grateful. Really. It’s just…it was very violent. Saints, Dellian, you were both going so fast when you hit! Then there was fighting. Your nose was bleeding. I didn’t…It was awful.”
“Ellici said I should be more forceful next time.”
“Ellici is right. You can debilitate with a single strike, you know. Then it would all be settled quickly.”
An image of the boy’s expression inside his helmet at the moment of impact flashed through Dellian’s mind. “I know. Maybe I should learn how.”
“In three years, we’ll get combat tutorials for the battle games.”
“I bet you could hack the data now.”
Her lips twitched. “Of course I could.”
“Seems funny to be talking about it. Hurting people.”
“It’s a dangerous universe out there.” She indicated the four-meter-high fence they were approaching. There was only silence outside in the valley’s tangled vegetation, which somehow managed to be even more threatening than when the creatures were on the prowl.
“So everyone tells us.” He stared through the fence. Twenty-five kilometers away, across the flat expanse of the valley floor, the crystal and silver towers of Afrata rose up amid the lower slopes of the mountains. Even now the old city was impressive, which Dellian found quite sad. No humans had lived in it for forty years. It seemed that every day the verdant vines and creepers had twined their way several more meters up the skyscrapers. The streets had long since been engulfed by wild greenery. And all those fancy apartments were now home to the various predatory animals of Juloss that stalked each other along Afrata’s broken boulevards.
“Doesn’t make it right,” Dellian said. “Saints, I know we’re all okay and safe living here in the estate. It’s just…I want to be out there!”
“We’ll get there,” she said sympathetically. “One day.”
“Ugh, you sound like Principal Jenner. Everything good’s going to happen
She smiled. “It is.”
“I want to walk outside the fence. I want to climb one of those towers. I want to go to the beach and swim in the sea. I want to be on board one of the warships they’re building up there, and fight the enemy.”
“We’re going to do all those things. You. Me. All of us. The clans are what’s left, we’re the pinnacle of Juloss, the best and greatest of all.”
Dellian sighed. “I thought the Five Saints were the greatest?”
“Their sacrifice was the greatest. We have to live up to that.”
“I’m never going to make it.”
Yirella laughed. “You will. Out of all of us, you will. Me? I just dream the Sanctuary star is real.”
“You think it is? Marok is always saying that Sanctuary is just a legend, a fable that the generation ships carry with them between worlds.”
“All myths start from a truth,” she said. “There must be so many humans spread across the galaxy now; it isn’t hard to think they found one star that’s safe from the enemy.”
“If it is real, we’ll find it together,” he promised solemnly.
“Thanks, Del. Now come on, I want to hear what Marok has to tell us about the Saints.”
—
Five Saints Hall was the most ornate building in the estate—a long entrance hall with glossy black-and-gold walls leading to five big chambers. Hot sunlight was diffused to a pervasive glow as it shone through the gold-tinted crystal roof.