The Cliffs of Utpala: Chapter Nine

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Kyra wrapped up her work in the barn. Every day was not merely a check on the animals and feeding them - well, she did that manually even though she didn't have to - but it also meant doubly checking their barn's structural integrity, checking the plumbing, surveying for worn insulation and more. Yes, yes, she could have left it all to the bots. However, as old man Ganesh has observed, prior to being munched to death by ravenous, feral pigs after he'd all but pickled himself, to err is human, but to truly foul things up requires a computer. And the smarter the computer, the bigger the disaster when it did.

She'd have thought Ganesh was wise, but he had drank far too much and been eaten by pigs. On an alien planet. That seemed to lower the apparent wisdom of his witticisms. Just a bit.

She wrapped up her duties and sighed. Even though she chose to do all the work manually, it didn't require a lot this time of year. No kids were due. No butchering planned. No sign of any illness amongst the herd. That meant she was done by noon, easily.

She sat quietly for a moment and contemplated again. The hunt, her responsibilities, her frustrations, her irritating little brother, everything. She was wondering what to do when Goatjira bleated at her hoping for more carrots. Goats, more greedy and needy than men. She shook herself and decided to not give into the Beetal. She then got a meep over her crystal. She had messages to be dealt with.

The first was her school. Yes, she was an adult and graduated from secondary schooling, but she still had more education to be completed. She was receiving a gentle reminder to make sure she plugged in for the lectures and Immies today. She'd missed them in the past at times. India's educational system didn't mimic America's - elementary, middle and high school, three years of college and then four of university! And if you were especially masochistic, then, graduate school! - however, all adults even those in the trades participated in post secondary education through their thirties. An educated society was something India took very, very seriously. Even out in the colonies.

Then there was her mother. A reminder of her friends family coming over for dinner and not to wander off. The Soods were nice people, but she wasn't sure she wanted to deal with them that evening. She was polite to their daughter and their son, but she didn't have anything in common with them. They knew what they were going to do with their lives and were almost single minded about it. Their senses of humor were rather different as well. Even their casual interests were well formed and on wildly different planets than hers. It made conversation...awkward. However, Aruna Sood was one of her mother's oldest friends and there was no escape.

Then there was the message from Dr. Prabhat. She almost felt a flutter. She had sent off the message to Earth to the researcher she'd met when he was last here studying some of the lower altitude ecology. She'd helped and even developed a mild crush, but that went away when he kept insisting on acting professionally with her. Stuffy. Too stuffy. Too polite and professional. She hadn't considered there was an age difference issue, but who did at her age when a crush came? The message was polite and interested if Kyra had made any new observations for anything they'd worked on. Also he stated he'd be coming back in three years. He made a point to state he was bringing his new wife. Well, that was that then. If there was any flutter, it was done, dead and iced before being pushed off the cliff. He did share some new specifications on the new planned environmental suits though that would allow explorers down in the bottom lands for longer. She glanced at them and filed them away. She'd get around to answering. Some time. Maybe.

She prepped for leaving, zipping up and double checking everything. Goatjira bleeted at her and she waved bye. She stepped outside and slipped on some sun glasses. The days might have been misty, but they had an awful amount of glare and her eyes were not so tolerant of it. Despite growing up on Utpala. She convinced herself it was how tire she was from her brother's prank. That was making it worse.

She trudged across the village to the library. Every Indian settlement had a library. They even had print books. Ones that would be pertinent if Mother India could not get to her colonial chicks to help them. Ones that would be helpful even if technology broken down on the colony and their crystals could no longer communicate. True, all the other works of the world were there, too, in a data form, but some were required for every world in hard copy. And she liked holding the hard copies. But that was not why she was going there.

She needed a Immie booth, one of the numerous ones there, for her studies. That way she would have privacy and she would be able to study without interruption. She didn't believe for a moment that her prankster brother would have left her alone at home. so, to the library it was. To a randomly picked available Immie booth. He couldn't do anything to all the booths!

As she trudged across town, she heard Urdu and Hindi, Tamil and Bengali, and the ever, ever present Indian Standard English. That last is what was taught to everyone to talk to everyone else. However, everyone was multilingual and the colonists had originated from all over India. She wondered what Utpala would be speaking in a hundred years and how it would sound to those in Terrestrial India. Strange? Provincial? Exotic? Probably not that last. Bumpkin was probably more likely. She grimaced over her messages and went into the library.

She nodded to Sanjay as he left. Sanjay nodded back as he hustled away. Technically, he was the librarian, but he had other things to do. Chickens, if she remembered properly. How one ended up working on the chicken farm and managing a library, she couldn't fathom, but...that was Sanjay. Nice guy Sanjay, just had a bit of a fowl smell at times.

She selected a booth. Settled in to Immerse to study. She closed her eyes in her nearly sound proof booth and laid back in the reclining seat. She triggered the Immie to start. She was relaxed and then realized as she nearly fell asleep she'd have to be wary. She wasn't there to sleep and if someone saw her passed out in the booth, she'd never hear the end of it: her mother would have heard and then her mother would then give Kyra a piece of her mind.

Kyra tensed just a bit, enough to keep her awake, and then dove into her studies.

She'd have been successful at what she needed to get done, even so. Her studies of the interactions between the Great Powers at the turn of the 22nd century was making good progress. What she needed that for? Who knows. India wanted its citizens to be well educated though. She'd have completed everything for the day, but she was shocked out of her mildly tense studies by a pounding on her booth.

She'd jumped and glared at what she had expected to be her little brother. The twerp had found her and decided she was a target. Again. She opened her eyes and her mouth to unleash a torrent at her sibling when she saw it was Arjun. And he had a big dopey, lopsided grin.

Whether it was meant as payback for the morning or if it was just to make an obnoxious stink, Kyra decided right then and there, her friend, her best friend, her friend who she was considering running off to have an adventure that might impact her whole rest of her pitiful colonial life, her buddy, her Arjun was simply going to have to die.

And Goatjira was going to get to eat him to dispose of the evidence. Goatjira wouldn't mind. Goatjira liked the taste of Arjun.

Definitely, Arjun was going to have to die.