Debatable Space

Roberta Jane

I can’t imagine a better childhood.

I’ve read lots of books, of course, about children on other planets. Novels about girls in a boarding school on the colony of Arcadia, where every child comes from genetically superior stock and the teachers are all Nobel Prize winners. And stories about boys and girls living on an early settlement in the Asteroid belt, always getting into mischief. And my mum has always encouraged me to read the ancient Earth texts to “help define the nature of childhood”. Books like Swallows and Amazons, Five Children and It, The Railway Children, Tracy Beaker, Arabella and Her Orphan Family on Mars and Dragos.

But I am being raised on the Rustbucket, a Type 3 warship which sails with the pirate horde fleet to wage war against an evil empire. Our ship has a vast central atrium which has been turned into a virtual museum of Earth habitats. Our play area was usually a tropical rainforest; but we could swap programs whenever we wanted in search of the perfect environment. One day we would be nomads in the Gobi Desert; another day we would be cowboys and Indians in Earth’s Monument Valley. We could do anything, be anywhere. Perfect!

We could program virtual-activity games too – we fought monsters and zombies and we piloted spaceships and rode horses and competed in dance tournaments. But the best thing of all was just wandering the ship itself – climbing up and down ladders into deserted bits of the ship with bulkheads and portholes and computer screens buzzing with activity.

I loved the porthole zone, where they had those huge huge windows that gave you a panorama of the space outside our ship. If you stared for long enough, the ship itself would vanish and you’d feel like a particle of matter floating through the Universe for ever and ever and ever and ever.

We also found a way into the engine room. It meant climbing through narrow pipeways, using cable for rope, leaping across live fusion chambers. I loved the throb of power of the fusion drive, and the clicking of microcomputers. I imagined I was in the belly of some mythical beast, a whale or a space-travelling orc. And every night, my mother would tell me stories of faraway lands and princes and princesses and oppressive ghastly tyrants who were hanged or castrated or crucified, which served them bloody well right.

But the most fun of all was when we trained. Sometimes we got hurt – I had my skull fractured twice, and every limb got broken when I fell off a floating disk and landed badly. But that didn’t worry me, it was all part of the rough and tumble. And I much preferred real combat to playing virtual-reality warrior games. I got a real buzz whenever I strapped on a real sword, or charged up a laser blaster. And became a warrior.

I was taught the art of kendo by my Uncle Harry; and it was hilarious! Whenever I hit him on the shin, he would growl and dribble spit down his fur. Uncle Brandon taught me how to build bombs and mentally calibrate distances before throwing grenades and flares and poison balls. And Uncle Alby was always there, flickering and snickering around, making dry sarcastic hissy comments. I loved Uncle Alby best, he was so funny, and so silly. Once, he hid in my pocket, and no one knew until my trousers caught fire and he crept sheepishly out!

We had a gang, of course, and I was the leader, because I was the fastest, and the strongest, even though I’m a girl. The gang members were my brothers Jack, Roger, Rob Junior and Ajax, my dorm mates Ginger, Gorgon, Frank and Piers, my sisters Persephone and Shiva and Hilary and Silver and Garnet and Ji, and Holly, who came from another dorm but liked to hang out with us. Jack was my best friend when I was little. But now I’m all grown up and eleven years old, I spend more time with Gorgon. He is a cheeky monster of a boy, he takes no shit from no one. Uncle Flanagan used to try and tell him off, but it never worked. Gorgon worked out that children could get away with anything, provided they kept up their training routine. He sleeps late and never tidies anything even when he’s the one who made the mess and he eats three ice creams at a single sitting. He has two mothers, Jenny and Molly, and they scream and swear at him, but he takes no notice. Because Gorgon is a natural flier, he can zoom around on a jet pack like a Dolph swimming in the ocean. So Uncle Flanagan always says, “Leave the boy alone.”

My mum, Alliea, is an important person on the ship. I can tell that. Uncle Flanagan always asks her advice before taking important decisions. And although Uncle Flanagan is in charge of everything and everyone, when they’re with us children, Alliea gives the orders. She once made Uncle Flanagan help her build a raft for us to sail down a virtual river. He started with a pile of logs and some twine, and after an hour he was swearing like, well, like a pirate. But Alliea just scolded him like a ten-year-old, and he grimaced and groaned and took it. So who’s the boss there then! I think my mum is pretty cool. I like Aunt Hera too.

I know that there will be a war when we reach our destination. I know that many of us will die and it will be horrible. But I imagine, also, it will be quite fun.

I’ve lived all my life in outer space, on a warship sailing between planets. Who could ask for anything more wonderful than that?