The sun was setting over the bright red, perfect roofs of Saccorata's residential districts when Doria and Gredda got out of the repulsortrain station closest to their street, on top of the tallest building. As they were climbing down the stairs to the first available pedestrian level, Gredda was thinking out loud about what had just happened.
"Tomorrow is going to be interesting, to say the least."
"Yeah. I pity Code:Blue already. But not more than I pity myself. Let's see which one of us will cry more."
They entered the pedestrian lane about 30 metres above the surface. Near-translucent wire fence on both sides was covered in vines, creating an illusion of the plants floating in the air. Small insects were pollinating the red, orange and yellow flowers. A flower-shaped dispenser would spray grain fly repellent in preprogramed intervals. The lane itself was covered with neatly-trimmed grass that seemed to be of two different shades. The lighter shade was shaped like writing and, indeed, if one was to read it vertically, in the direction of walking, it seemed to be making sense.
PROGRESS AND ORDER!
PRACTICE SELF-DEPRECATING BEHAVIOUR!
BE A VIGILANT CITIZEN AND REPORT ANY INDOCRINATION FROM OUTSIDERS!
BUY SAYGO!
Doria glanced at the fourth and last piece of grass-writing.
"What is wrong with this planet? Everybody buys Saygo. Is it because they even write messages about it…in the grass?"
"Remember, I did my technician practice in the Saygo factory in Curheg and then at their headquarters in Sublata back in the days. Saygos are the cheapest landcars available in the entire Galaxy. Or maybe not, I bet they're making something more affordable in the Corporate Sector; but we were made to believe that nothing can be cheaper than a Saygo. For some reason, it goes well with the self-deprecating behaviour, stairs in place of some turbolifts and so on. But sure, they're not really reliable. I wouldn't go anywhere near, say, areas known grey bears."
"You say go and it doesn't go. Right?" Doria stuck her tongue to the writing.
They continued through the flowering lane, which then declined to the 20m level. Large holographic signs were pointing pedestrians to directions of the rounded apartment buildings in the nearby streets. The intersecting lanes seemed busier than the large one they just came from. Neighbours were sitting in adjacent hovering cafes, watching sports games on viewscreens.
"Just a second, Gredda." Doria went over to the nearest café and approached two older men. "Is the qualifying session for the Tralus race over yet? Who's starting first tomorrow?"
"Haylo Cipesz, of course. He's the greatest!"
"No! Jax Novo is the greatest. Haylo Cipesz has nothing on him; he is not a fair player."
"Oh, great." The other, younger man joined the conversation. Doria recognised him as one of Tendra's friends. "Another teenage girl who demands justice for poor Jax Novo, just because he's handsome and regularly appearing in Juicy Blabber and Teen!Impz."
"I don't read Juicy Blabber and whatever the other thing is, I have not heard of it. I buy only dedicated podracing holos and those about speeders in general."
"That's what all teenage girls say. Do you have a secret Jax fanclub in some basement or what? He's basically a jizz-wailer podracer, that's the thing!"
"Kriff off. We're allowed to like the same things as you do."
Gredda pulled Doria's hand. "Let him go. It's not worth it, we will be late."
Doria shook her head and followed her friend. She didn't understand the fuss, but decided to kept quiet so she wouldn't sound like Maris. This dinner party was just a standard one Duchess Branna would throw every other week for her friends.
Nothing compared to the Grain Night. The Grain Night was the highlight of the year, for everybody who was friendly with the R'vanye clan. Held at the beginning of the summer, in honour of the peasant family that first welcomed the clan to Sacorria, the celebration would often last until early in the morning. And Duchess Branna knew how to party – she knew the best local musicians, the most breath-taking Selonian war dancers and, being the great leader that she was, she would bring some of the most influential bohemians of the Saccorata's Art Committee along. Even the grouchiest of the grouches – such as Maris Vorr – loved the Grain Night.
…
The next morning, Code:Blue arrived from Dorthus Tal City. Just like all true, dedicated state censors, he used the plain repulsortrain and not a speeder of his own, in order to promote self-deprecating behaviour to citizens. Doria was still in bed after a miserable podrace where Jax Novo crashed and Haylo Cipesz won; and she forgot to wait for the state censor at the repulsortrain station. Luckily, Gredda had foreseen this and at ten hundred, she was at the docking balcony of the Vorr apartment. Maris had muttered that she does not have her make-up on yet and the guest had to wait for full twenty minutes.
"Comradette Maris Vorr? Prog! My name is J…"
"The limmie player known for the baby burp thing? Wasn't your skin darker?"
"No, that was my team mate! The better guy, of course."
"Comrade, you were always less annoying than him."
"I-I guess I will take that as a compliment, of course?"
"Yeah…" Doria in PJs was standing at the end of the corridor leading to the den. "That's how my mother compliments people. Also, mom, he's a state censor or something now."
Maris nearly screamed. "What is a state censor doing at our home?"
"You should prepare yourself – and him – some caf." Gredda sat on the couch and turned the viewscreen off. "Make sure his contains more sugar than anything else. This is going to be a long morning."
…
Two standard hours later, Code:Blue was on the verge of crying. This would have never happened to Code:Red, he knew how to deal with the unbreakable comrades and comradettes. What exactly was Maris Inesedam-Vorr made of, that not even sugar, the precious sugar, could help him come up with a solution that would stop her from what she was now doing – lamenting over her, to him, pretty much harmless relocation. Sure, she was aware that she had to say yes to this proposal, for both her and her daughter's sake; but she seemed to be taking way too much pleasure in criticising him over what he could not control.
"Me? To live in that kriffhole and not Abatore, one of the most beautiful cities in the Sector?" She looked through the window, not turning her face back towards Code:Blue, Gredda and her own daughter. "This planet has completely lost it. We need to blow ourselves up or something"
"Of course…I mean, of course not, comradette Inesedam-Vorr!" Code:Blue's spasm of a smile was present again. He was slowly starting to realise where Doria got her sense of humour from. The only problem was that it did not even closely resemble humour. On the contrary.
"Comradette Vorr?" he turned to Doria. "I have brought you something special, to cheer you up, of course. Two free tickets for an event that we had to relocate to Saccorata from the Cobble Stone Square in the capital. I even named it after an event that's popular in this part of the city, of course. At least that's what I found in my documentation."
Doria grabbed the ticket out of his hands, solely to have Maris take them away from her.
"Is this supposed to make us feel better? The design of these tickets makes me want to punch somebody. Too much purple."
"It's not changing anything about your mood then, mom." Doria calmly pulled the tickets and, once in possession of them again, started reading the print. "Grain Night Fest Featuring Deeply Religious, Steamy Wasaka Stew and…Dadanna? H-how does this even add up?"
"It was my idea." He grinned. "Everybody on Sacorria loves pretty Dadanna! The best singer around, of course!"
"Wait, this means I won't be able to attend Duchess Branna's Grain Night banquet!"
"You will join us later. Better for me. When you're present, you're embarrassing me so much. The way you hold the fork and…"
"Yes!" Code:Blue cut Maris in the middle of the sentence. "This way you get two Grain Nights. The one everybody can get into…with a ticket and the mythical one that…wait? The two of you can attend the actual Grain Night?"
"Glisse!" Gredda got up from the couch and walked towards him, the black star pendant reflecting the light. "I told you that my aunt is the current leader of the R'vanye clan. You can't seem to remember what you were doing yesterday."
"O-of course! I mean, no…I do remember yesterday!"
"And no, you're not invited to the Grain Night. The way things are going, we will probably throw another dinner party in Maris and Doria's honour and you can come to that one, but not this one."
He frowned.
…
Tendra Risant's comm beeped, just as she was getting out of the 'fresher. The code displayed was one she couldn't recall getting anything from for a long time.
"Prog, Tendra." The monotonous voice on the other side definitely belonged to the one she thought was calling and, apparently, it wasn't a mistake.
"Doria! What a surprise!"
"Tendra…this may come across as weird, but I have two tickets for the Grain Night Fest. Would you go with me?"
"Is Antonio Nokaarbe going to be there? Antonio of SWS?"
"Unless his band fancies performing without him, yes."
"Antonio! By the light of Sacor, Doria, I love you!" Tendra was dancing around the room at this point. "I am going to see Antonio again!"
"So, that's in two days. Where are we going to meet?"
"I am going to pick you up at four. Dad bought me a Saygo!"
"At four? In the afternoon?"
"No, at four in the morning. I need to be as close to Antonio as possible! I was in the hoverlounge at the Coronet City concert and I couldn't get a good look of his muscles with my own naked eye."
"You're kidding, right?" Doria was not amused.
"Not at all. Antonio Nokaarbe is…wow, you have to look him up on HoloNet if you're not familiar with SWS already. I l-l-love him! I could totally…marry him! Hey…where did you go? I guess somebody is jamming the calls again. Ohwell…"
Ten minutes after she had accidentally hung up on Tendra, Doria came across some holovideos of SWS and Antonio Nokaarbe himself. He looked like a small piece of furniture and, apparently, everybody thought he was Kiffar. Since the BybloPedia article only referred to his band as being on the Galactic Empire's Scarlet List; she activated the slicers' bypass to the uncensored network and looked him up on HoloPedia. He sounded like a scoundrel, fond of debauchery and the list of his former girlfriends, most of whom posed naked with him at some point, was so long that it took her three tries to open it. Since when was Tendra Risant, the girl who practically grew up under her father's desk at various government offices, fond of such egomaniacs?
And why were Gredda's ideas so weird sometimes? There had got to have been a better solution to get accommodation worthy of Maris' wishes. A better solution than being forced to invite Tendra Risant to this festival and then nagging about asking her dad for help once they were on the barrier.
Just then, a bubble with the latest news from the Galaxy's top podracing outlet formed across the screen.
JAX NOVO SACKED BY THE EMPRESS TETA RACING TEAM DUE TO POOR RESULTS.
Fed up with everything, Doria slammed the lid of her datapad against its keyboard and looked at the Jax poster on the wall of her room.
"My poor wookiee-ookiee, what are they doing to you? You…you don't deserve this."
She completely forgot to check for information on Deeply Religious.