The Samothea Project's hyperspace shuttlecraft, CSS
Petticoat I
, landed by the Cloner City on the planet Samothea on a bright sunny morning. Yael was the first one out of the spacecraft. She wore her white airsuit. With her innocent beauty and long golden hair, she would have looked like an angel, except that compressed air tanks on her hips spoiled her sleek lines and a backpack full of physics books took the place of her wings.
Yael charged the air tanks from the ship's compressor and turned on her airsuit. She was soon surrounded by a ghostly purple aura as the squeezed-up air shimmered and whistled around her. She looked longingly at the Council Hall, where her girlfriend, Carlin, was still a Junior. Sighing, Yael put on her helmet and, with a muffled shout of "Thanks" to the Petticoat crew, took a few skips, leaped daintily into the air and released the compressed air jets. She shot straight up and made a graceful backward arc as she flew south-east toward the forest.
In less than an hour, Yael landed at the Woodlanders' Forest Camp. Shouting "Hello" to everyone and "Where's Mum?" she threw her backpack into her mother's hut and stripped off the airsuit. Straightening out a short skirt and tee-shirt as she put them on, Yael ran to the pool where Eloise and Adarna were drying off after a cooling bath.
"Mum! Mum! I'm back!" Yael yelled, pouncing on Eloise and hugging her wildly.
"Yael! I can see you're back. Stop being so silly. Let me breathe!"
"No, I won't! I love you so much, Mum!" Yael cried. "I missed you every minute!"
"Yes, yes, dear. I missed you, too. Now give your aunt Adarna a kiss and let's sit down. Then you can tell us everything you did on Celetaris."
Yael reluctantly released her mother and jumped on Adarna to hug her tightly as well.
"Welcome back, Sweetie!" Adarna said, enthusiastically returning the excited girl's stifling embrace.
Satisfied at last, Yael sat down on the bench by the clothes line, where the women usually dried off after a dip. She picked up Adarna's daughter, Tomi, who was crawling about on the ground, and held her on her lap, making faces to amuse the infant while Eloise and Adarna dressed.
Although Eloise loved her daughter more than anything in the world, she was also the least demonstrative woman in the Woodlander Camp. She kissed Yael on the forehead and sat by her, occasionally stroking her long golden hair, listening patiently while Yael told her everything she had done on Celetaris. The girl jabbered non-stop for a whole hour, by which time Eloise and Adarna were thoroughly exhausted.
They were none the less impressed that Yael had learned so much and happy that she had so thoroughly enjoyed herself. They passed no comment on the story of Ryan, which Yael told with innocent enthusiasm, sparing no details; though they shared a look to indicate that this was something to discuss later between them.
Yael told her story again to the whole tribe at the feast that night, commanding everyone's attention from the moment they sat down to the moment the night rain started and they gratefully retired to their huts. Many things had happened in the forest while Yael was away: many women also had stories to tell; but they were all sidelined by the juggernaut of Yael's breathless romance.
No one really minded that Yael hogged the conversation. Instead, they were pleased that a daughter of the tribe had learned so much and that she was bringing two friends to come and visit them.
Next day, Yael flew in her airsuit to the Herders' midway camp to see Judith, her Herder mother. Now she told the Herder tribe everything she had done on Celetaris, with a special emphasis on the exploits of Wildchild, who had been born a Herder. It was a pity Wildchild's mother, Galatea, was in the Cloner City. She would have rejoiced to hear the news.
Judith was enchanted by Yael's visit, though she wasn't entirely sure about Ryan and wanted to know whether his intentions were honourable, who his family were and what were his prospects. Yael delighted in the contrast between her cool natural mother and her over-protective Herder mother. She slept in Judith's bed that night and next morning flew at last to the Cloner City to see her girlfriend, Carlin.
Carlin was the most senior of the Juniors now. She remained in her role beyond her nineteenth birthday because Jane Bradford, the Petticoats' doctor, was in the Cloner City, revolutionising medicine on Samothea. Most of what Carlin learned from Madam Medic was now redundant; so Carlin and anyone who could be spared, including Madam Medic herself, took daily medical lessons from Doctor Bradford.
The Petticoats brought medical equipment, thickly shielded from the cosmic rays, to rebuild the clinic. Jane Bradford showed her students how the various instruments worked and the modern nursing techniques they made possible. There was a lot to learn and Carlin took her duties seriously, both as a Junior and a medical student.
Two years before, Solange had suggested that Gloria accept Wildchild as a Junior, expanding the intake of girls to the outer tribes. Wildchild had been such an unexpected success that no one afterward questioned Solange's ideas in regard to the Juniors.
Now there were seven Juniors, more than ever before. Besides Carlin, there was Odette, the skilled Mariner sculptress, the second-most senior of the Juniors. She was the first Mariner to become a Junior. The others were a Herder girl, two Farmers and a Cloner girl.
The Cloner girl was Crystal, the serious-minded geek who had been Madam Scientist's assistant since before she was a teenager. Later, she helped as a part-time teacher in the nursery school. Skinny with dirty blonde hair that tended toward the wiry and pale because she spent too much time indoors as a girl, Crystal sported a scar on her temple from when Belena Mariner went nuts and vandalised the Cloning Lab, accidentally striking Crystal who bravely confronted her. Now she was just eighteen, Crystal was the newest Junior.
Still a geek, Crystal had lost her serious manner and, instead, gained an unexpected cheekiness. She also fancied Carlin something rotten and didn't try to hide her infatuation.
Extra Juniors meant more work because Carlin didn't merely give orders but got her hands dirty helping the girls with their duties, showing them how to make unpleasant chores more palatable. This hot afternoon, she sacrificed some of her free time to give the girls a pep-talk and hear their complaints, leaving Odette alone on duty to look after any of the Councillors' needs and to answer the front door.
Yael, a blonde whirlwind, landed at the Cloner City on a sultry day, when almost everyone was having a rest after lunch. She stripped off her airsuit and folded it away. The grey mini-skirt and short yellow slip top she pulled out of her backpack were sadly crumpled. Yael tried shaking them out but decided they would have to do as they were. She put on the clothes, hefted the backpack over her shoulders and ran up to the Council Hall to knock excitedly at the door.
It took a minute of impatient rapping before Odette responded to the summons.
"Hello, Miss Junior," Yael spurted excitedly, without looking at who greeted her. "I'm Yael Eloisesdaughter Woodlander. I'm here to see Carlin Erinsdaughter. Can I see her, please? Where is she?"
"Yael. It's me, Odette."
"Odette!" Yael cried, leaping up to hug the Mariner girl. "I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!"
This odd statement was because the Mariners generally wore short leather skirts and jackets, but they worked naked, so they were often unclothed around the camp. Now Odette was in a very fetching mid-length blue dress with bare arms.
"Here, give me your pack," Odette said. "Carlin's with the Juniors in the dormitory. I'll show you the way."
"Thanks. I know it!"
Leaving her pack with Odette, Yael sprinted up the stairs, three at a time, shouting "Carlin, Carlin!"
The commotion alerted Madam Gloria, Prefect of Samothea, who had been reading in her room. She came to the balcony to see Yael bouncing upstairs.
"Good afternoon, Yael," she called out across the corridor.
"Hi, Gloria," Yael cried happily but she didn't stop to talk.
Odette followed at a more respectable pace. At the top of the stairs, she dropped a deeper curtsey than normal to Gloria, as if to make up for Yael's lack of manners, but Gloria only smiled and waved her on. She knew what drove Yael and would never put her dignity before young love.
Yael crashed into the Junior dormitory, interrupting the meeting, crying: "Carlin: I'm back, I'm back!"
Surprised but happy, her girlfriend raced to the door to greet her.
