Burn Bright - By Marianne de Pierres Page 0,1

to touch it to see if it was real or made of moonlight.

‘All who?’ she asked instead, crouching among the shadows near her.

‘The Ripers.’

‘What’s a Riper?’

‘Don’t you read the confetti?’ asked the girl.

Retra thought of the balloon gondola that floated across from Ixion sometimes and littered Grave’s wet, stone streets with flyers. Father had whipped her for picking them up. Then he had burnt them in the wood stove. But Joel had smuggled a flyer home and whispered to her about it. ‘Yes. Once.’

The girl sighed as if Retra was an idiot. ‘Ripers are the Guardians of Ixion. They look after you. They know everything. Even when you’re too old to live there anymore.’

‘What happens to you then?’

The girl shrugged as if she didn’t care, but Retra could see the glittering excitement in her eyes, coloured by the party lights that wound around the ship’s railing.

‘How should I know? That’s ages away for me.’ She gave a wicked smile. ‘I’m only seventeen. I’ve got a lot of partying to do before then.’

Retra’s stomach tightened. ‘I’ve never been to a party.’

The girl stuck a finger in her mouth and sucked it. ‘None of us have. But I’ve been practising what to say if a cute guy wants me to dance. Or go somewhere with him.’ She tittered. ‘Anyway, I’m Cal. What’s your name?’

Hesitantly, Retra leaned into the shifting coloured light and lifted her veil. ‘I’m Retra.’

Cal’s smile faded. She wrinkled her nose. ‘I didn’t see your veil. You’re a Seal. They don’t like Seals in Ixion, it takes them too long to loosen up. Some of them go frossing mad before they do.’

Retra stiffened. Cal’s swearing shocked her. ‘How do you know that?’

Cal inched away as if she might catch something. ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? You super-straights are a bit retarded. Give you some freedom and you “snap”.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Some go into themselves, others go wild – that’s what I’ve heard. Wonder which sort you’ll be?’

Super-straights. Is that what the rest of Grave called them?

Well, Cal might know how to swear but she didn’t know anything about Retra. Seals didn’t just live in sealed compounds. They lived in sealed minds. The first thing a Seal child learnt was how to shield her thoughts and emotions from others.

That’s why Retra missed Joel so much. Only with her brother could she whisper secrets. Only with him did she feel safe to share her feelings. ‘We aren’t retarded,’ she said. ‘We are …’ She searched for the word. ‘Private.’

‘Is that why you don’t go to school or to Council meets? Is that why you live in that stupid compound? ’Cos you’re private.’

Cal’s sarcasm made Retra nervous. ‘We attend Face-School,’ she said.

‘Face-School’s weird, just talking to a teacher-head on a square box.’

‘It’s a proven way to learn.’

‘Proven way to learn,’ mimicked Cal. ‘School’s not about learning. It’s about friends. Everyone knows that. How can you have friends if you never see anyone?’

‘I s-see people. My family and … our ward–’ Retra stopped. She’d said too much.

‘Warden? You have a warden visit? What did you do wrong?’

Retra dropped her head. The warden had been sent to watch her family after Joel left, but she didn’t want to tell Cal that – or anything else.

‘Yeah, well, family still amounts to nothing.’ Cal stood up. She wasn’t very tall, and her white hair fell almost to her waist. In Grave North the girls had to wear their hair bound but Cal had untied hers already. It made Retra feel self-conscious.

She watched the girl walk off along the deck until she reached the barge’s large cabin housing, where she disappeared from sight.

The murmur of voices drifted back to Retra from the same direction. The other runaways would be down there. Perhaps she should join them; there might be food and something to drink. Her last meal had been well over a day ago. Mother had served braised livers with kumara and snake beans. The same meal they’d had the night Joel ran away; the night they’d been put on probation; the night the warden had stapled the obedience patch to Retra’s thigh. Then he’d placed electro-eyes around the house so he could watch her family eat and dress and other private things.

Father had born the intrusion like penance. Mother scarcely seemed to notice, consumed by her sadness. But Retra hated it. She took to dressing in the shower cubicle while she was still wet, and shivering through the morning in damp clothes.

Now hunger pains clawed