Memory Seed

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘The noophytes, noophytes are febrile, I, I say,’ Spyne added. She sat in a wicker dish on the table, being a womanikin – a reminder of the genetic madness of previous millennia.

  ‘Febrile?’ came mutters around the table.

  ‘What does febrile mean?’

  Shaking as though in a fury, Deese-lin, sweat beginning to run from her flushed scalp and face, tried to continue her flurry of words. Occasionally sentences would separate from one another, and the Portreeve would have to make her repeat their gist.

  ‘You always bawl me out!’ she said. ‘I told you there would be trouble. The conscoosities say that the time is close. The jump.'

  ‘The, the jump, jump,’ said Spyne, nodding her tiny head.

  Deese-lin pointed at the Portreeve. ‘Guiners, guiners! There are twenty voices all advising you and you don’t listen. They say you must hurry. Hurry, kraandeere! In months this city will be dead and gone, they’ve foreseen it all, and they never lie.’

  ‘Is what you’re trying to say,’ asked the Portreeve, ‘that we must hurry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Spyne added.

  ‘Then sit. You may visit my personal chamber afterwards, Deese-lin. And bring evidence with you.’

  There were looks of alarm at this. ‘Your chamber?’ Omaytra said. ‘But what about us?’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said the Portreeve, shaking her head.

  ‘Why should we miss out on discussions concerning the plan?’

  ‘Deese-lin is febrile,’ answered the Portreeve, allowing herself a small smile at her jest. ‘She is temperamental–’

  ‘I’m sane!’ Deese-lin protested, her arm-waving violent enough to knock over a goblet.

  ‘Sane, sane,’ Spyne echoed.

  The Portreeve sighed. ‘This becomes unseemly.’

  Uqeq, pointing at Omaytra and Katoh-lin, said, ‘You stay out of this. Leave the Portr-tr-tr-treeve alone.’

  The Portreeve rang her dolphin. ‘Item number fourteen. Hurry it along now, I’ve got supper in a few minutes. The Dodspaat priestess situation.’

  Katoh-lin controlled her wavering voice. ‘Much as before,’ she reported. ‘I am watching her riverside house, mmm, mmm, very carefully. Unfortunately she has special pyuter circuits, and even Uqeq’s superlative agents can’t overhear her network conversations. It’s most vexing.’

  ‘D-d-d-damned aamlon priestess,’ Uqeq stuttered.

  ‘But is she dangerous? asked the Portreeve.

  ‘Most assuredly. She has murdered before. But what she is doing through the serpents I don’t know. Mmm, mmm, mmm, we must watch and learn–’

  ‘Haul her in,’ came a few voices.

  Katoh-lin slapped her hand upon the leather table-top. ‘No! That would be a terrible, mmm, mistake. We must discover what she is doing first. What if she is of some illegal group? What if she is a Holist?’

  ‘Katoh-lin is correct,’ said Surqjna in her silky voice. She had tanned skin and penetrating brown eyes. ‘The priestess must be watched. There’s nothing we can do at the moment.’

  ‘Agreed,’ chorused Ammyvryn and Omaytra.

  ‘Lunacy,’ retorted Uqeq.

  ‘We’ll debate that when the time comes,’ said the Portreeve in a loud voice, glaring at Uqeq and at the fidgeting Deese-lin. ‘At the moment, it seems that she has just discovered some way of attracting the attention of the noophytes, yes?’

  ‘Mmm, yes,’ agreed Katoh-lin.

  ‘Right. If she manages anything more damaging, we’ll make her a priority. For now she’s an interfering body. However, if any of you do happen across her, she’s to be killed instantly.’

  Surqjna drew in a hiss of breath, and Katoh-lin said, ‘But–’

  ‘That’s all,’ said the Portreeve, ringing the dolphin. ‘Fifteen. A break-in. Pyetmian.’

  Pyetmian, a fat woman wearing black and red silks and a brimmed hat, said, ‘We can’t trace it exactly, Portreeve. Somebody got into a service tunnel and did some damage. It was an insider who knew how to disable the hatch alarm. It’s impossible to say how far she got. I’ve sealed the access hatch and had the area monitored. More than likely she came from the Power Station.’

  The Portreeve nodded. ‘Have everyone at the Power Station who would have been in the right area at the right time sent to Uqeq’s dungeons.’

  ‘Yes, Portreeve.’

  The dolphin rang. ‘Sixteen and last. Water shortages. Pyetmian again.’

  Pyetmian nodded, glancing at a pyuter at her side. She had the air of an efficient matron. ‘We must divert much more from both Water Stations,’ she said. ‘The Krayans can stand it. l’ll have estimates of the new amounts required by us sent to you all.’ She paused, surveying the eight people around her. ‘In principle, do you agree? I don’t want to cause trouble in the city.’

  ‘Trouble?’ came voices.

  Pyetmian shrugged. ‘Hopefully we’ll be out of Kray soon, if Surqjna and Deese-lin and the noophytes and everyone else works at full tilt. But you never know, ordinary people outside might get agitated. We’ve seen what a few miserable clerics can do. Think what might happen if Taziqi and the Goddess clerics become belligerent.’

  The Portreeve clicked her tongue, obviously irritated. ‘Tsk, tsk, don’t mention that wobbling slug to me. The Goddess temple won’t spoil the plan, you have my word on that.’

  Pyetmian shrugged, playing with a pen and studying the tabletop. Around the table there was an atmosphere of suspicion – glances, fidgeting fingers, sour faces.

  The Portreeve stood. ‘Anything else?’

  Ammyvryn said, ‘Yes. One small matter. My daughter.’

  ‘Your daughter. Arryquyn? Aryquellen? Is it urgent, I’m late for supper.’

  ‘I just wanted to say that she’s to be watched.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Katoh-lin and Surqjna simultaneously.

  ‘Because. There are spies everywhere.’

  ‘Very well. Spies or no spies, the meeting is closed until next time. You may all leave the Nonagon.’

  ~

  Zinina left the house and hurried into Pine Street, the site of the nearest working wall-screen. Bypassing console security with a pin, she dialled ten numbers.

  A querulous voice answered. ‘Hello?’ It was Qmoet.

  Zinina spoke in jannitta. ‘It’s me. Any luck with the Citadel data I sent you?’

  ‘Ky and Eskhatos are working on it. You got more?’

  ‘No. I’m planning though… oh, hang on.’ A cat had prowled into view on the window sill above and to the left of her, an old moggy by the look of it. Zinina raised her needle rifle and killed it first shot. It dropped into a puddle, splashing water out and leaving a halo of wriggling orange worms. ‘I’m planning a second mission,’ she continued. ‘I think we’ll have Arrahaquen along this time.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I know, I know, she’s Ammyvryn’s daughter. No, she seems totally genuine, Qmoet. I know my instincts. She’s genuine or I’m a man. Actually I even quite like her. A bit.’

  Qmoet stayed quiet. The line crackled and Zinina noticed the blue edges of the screen fading. ‘Not even a hint of a plot behind Arrahaquen?’ Qmoet said at last.

  ‘Nothing. C’mon, she left us a ficus plant as security!’

  ‘You keep sending in the data, huh? We’re glad you told us about noophytes, but we still don’t know what they are. Must be a very old word.’

  ‘Talking of which, have Ky or Gishaad-lin had any luck with that word, “dwan”?’

  ‘No.’

  Zinina cursed under her breath. ‘It must mean something. Listen, Graaff-lin told me she made this recording from a serpent, and it said “dwan” was a heart word that the likes of us shouldn’t use.’

  ‘We’ll see what we can find out.’

  ‘I’ll call again when my mission’s set up.’

  ‘Take care, Zin.’

  The line went dead, and the screen speakers fizzed at her, as though in revenge at her ill
icit ways. Zinina removed her pin from the data port. A scrap of silver paper lying on the screen caught her eye. She picked up the scrap and examined it. It was a square of foil that looked as if it had held a tablet. She sniffed it.

  Menthol.

  Startled, Zinina stared at the foil, then turned to scan the street, half expecting to meet the gaze of somebody else. There was no watcher. A few defenders hunched dejected over their cannisters of verticide passed by. The windows of every house she could see were shuttered. Disconcerted, Zinina began the walk back to Graaff-lin’s house. The foil she stowed inside her kit.

  CHAPTER 8

  A week passed by. The two seeds in Zinina’s adopted home were no longer proper plants. They were squat globes, purple and shiny, their cases hard as steel and pierced here and there with tiny screens and arrays of digital ports, their surfaces stippled and, because they twitched occasionally, slightly menacing. There seemed no physical difference between them.

  Arrahaquen still worked in the Citadel, but she seemed very tense. Zinina, meanwhile, decided it was time to investigate Arvendyn.

  ‘Investigate? How?’ Graaff-lin asked.

  Zinina nodded. ‘You remember we tracked Arvendyn entering the Andromeda Quarter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where Rien Zir’s old temple stood?’

  ‘What business would Arvendyn have there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s why I think we should go on a little picnic.’

  ‘But the Andromeda Quarter? Do you think it would be safe?’

  ‘Safe? Is the Portreeve an educated, ethical woman?’

  A pause. ‘No.’

  ‘Right. Oh, stop worrying, we’ll be back before you’re needed at your temple.’

  Zinina went to the kitchen to pack the food, raiding stocks to make up a package of potato salad, okra, seaweed cakes and a tube of sugar-coated nuts that she happened to find under a couch cushion. She packed four bottles of official water, but covered their crimson tops to minimise attention from revellers.

  It was another dim day and rain poured from low cloud, though it smelled fresh enough. The six parties of defenders that they saw west of the river all carried torches. Zinina carried an anjiq with a handle while Graaff-lin, suffering still from a cold, took a sea-fat lantern with fresnel lens shutters. Through the sodden streets they walked, following the curve of the river until they crossed Peppermint Street and found themselves in the Andromeda Quarter. Behind them, blue and green tubes inside houses flickered and died as another power-cut took hold.

  The Andromeda Quarter occupied that portion of Kray to the south-east of the Gardens. It sprawled. Most of it consisted of ancient ruins. No main streets passed through it, but to the south it was bounded by Peppermint and Arrowmint Streets, and to the east by Jessamine Street. At its eastern tip stood the sinister twin spires of the Felis temple.

  Zinina surveyed the jungle of damp foliage and shattered masonry ahead. ‘Do we just forge through or follow a map?’

  ‘Follow the map,’ said the sensible Graaff-lin.

  Zinina unrolled a plan printed on a plastic sheet. ‘Let’s follow that way a while,’ she said, pointing down an alley fringed with palms and giant ferns. ‘Get out yer cat-pranger.’ Zinina shouldered her pack and tightened her kit on its belt. She felt excited; not at all afraid. ‘I’ve wanted to come here for years,’ she said. ‘At last I’m free enough to do it.’

  As they walked they pointed things out to one another. ‘Look at the frost damage on those leaves,’ Graaff-lin said, indicating a grove of slim papyrus. ‘Winter hit hard here.’

  Zinina could see orange trees and even a few banana trees, and these were the variety that produced fruit rather than pyuter hardware; the extraordinary fecundity of Kray’s botanic foundation had beaten even the fiercest grip of ice. She whistled in appreciation. Everywhere, even growing from the tops of ruins, she saw mare’s tail clumps all heavy with sodden teardrop-shaped data peripherals, which she collected to aid future bartering sessions.

  They moved on. Through parks overgrown with ivy and along passages choked with cushions of fungus they walked, stopping to peer down wells that seemed to lead to the centre of the globe – a pyuter rangefinder said ‘unreadable’ – and pausing to listen to ghostly echoes, which sometimes they realised were of sounds they had made. Cats prowled, and these they shot. They saw a few snakes, but ignored them. The atmosphere was sultry. Occasionally the ground would shiver and once there was even a tremor that made bricks fall off a crumbling wall. Zinina and Graaff-lin stopped at this, and looked around, perplexed. Tremors here were thought to be caused by underground machine remnants left by previous occupants of the quarter. It was a place haunted by the spirits of life and of artificial life.

  Zinina paused every so often to put her bare hand to the sopping soil. It possessed a distinct warmth. The tall trees all around seemed to chide her for making this observation.

  Whistles and distant whoops, as of dangerous animals massing for attack, echoed through the sodden vegetation. The constant patter of rain, a sound Zinina found relaxing in its own way, became here the carrier wave of danger, and she found that she was gripping the butt of her rifle.

  Graaff-lin stopped. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to a pile of ruins fifty feet high.

  Zinina peered at her map, wiping the rain off with a sleeve. ‘I think that’s the remains of the old Phallists’ ziggurat. We must be here – look on the map. Just south of the Galactic Port.’

  ‘How distant are the Gedeese Veert ruins?’

  ‘Oh... half an hour.’

  Graaff-lin walked towards the vine-slung ruins to investigate their outer walls. Zinina followed. The bricks here were tightly packed, without mortar, and showed the vitreous signs of laser cutting. They were covered with engraved murals, some still containing the original copper inlays.

  ‘Look,’ said Graaff-lin, with an intake of breath. ‘Look, the women have beards. Ugh.’

  Zinina peered at the ranks of figures that, although viewed from the side, had heads, feet and hands depicted from the front. With a broken gourd she drew water from a puddle to clean an area of algae and lichen. ‘Those aren’t women, they’re men.’

  ‘But they’ve got breasts.’

  Zinina looked again. ‘So they have. They must be men with breasts, then. Them beards must be falsies.’

  Graaff-lin threw Zinina a haughty glance. ‘Or women with beards.’

  Zinina shook her head. ‘I think, given the history of this planet, that it’s far more likely to be men with breasts.’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’

  ‘Sure. Feminisation. The change in the land, going bad and that? Don’t you know anything? It was living off bad land that made the pestilence viruses that attack immune systems.’

  Graaff-lin shuddered at the mention of that disease. ‘It all sounds a trifle imaginative, Zinina.’

  Zinina frowned. ‘You want proof? Look, the men ain’t got no bulges between their legs, have they?’ Zinina decided that Graaff-lin was confused, and a question that she had often wanted to ask the aamlon priestess came to mind. ‘Are you still a virgin, incidentally?’

  Graaff-lin took on the haughty air once more. ‘All dedicated priestesses of the Dodspaat are celibate. I was born into the faith. What do you think?’

  Zinina nodded. ‘I just wondered. Didn’t mean to annoy you.’

  ‘Well you have, Zinina. I could ask a similar question. I’ve heard that in some reveller societies, by which I mean the society you come from, in case you had not realised, sexual relations outside of wedlock are punished by execution. Is that so?’

  Zinina was used to the pliable, melancholy, almost downtrodden Graaff-lin. This fiery retort made her uncomfortable. ‘Well,’ she muttered, ‘yes.’

  ‘I am quite certain you are not a virgin.’

  Zinina laughed. ‘I’ve been to the Fish Chambers like everyone else. But I ain’t a reveller any more, remember?’

  A further though
t struck Zinina.

  ‘Were your parents born into the Hu Junuq faith, then?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Well, you popped out of a woman, didn’t you? Someone must have got pregnant, unless you’re a partheno like Arrahaquen.’

  Graaff-lin turned away from the murals and returned to the road down which they had been walking. ‘Let us speak no more of this sordid topic.’

  Zinina chuckled, and followed. They forged on through thickets of date and fern, and along alleys lined with coconut palms.

  At noon they arrived at the ruins. Zinina looked at the green spot on her map, then studied the scene ahead. ‘This is it. This is Rien Zir’s original temple.’

  In a square walled on two sides, open on the others, stood a complex of stone and greenery, an overgrown ruin that in some places was well preserved but in others consisted of dust and moss. The highest point was sixty feet high, the lowest was a slimy pond. The place lay shrouded in an aura of majesty, partly because of the sheer scale of the surviving constructions, but it also seemed mysterious because of the bizarre architecture. Gargoyles and statues rivalled walls in size, and there were many outcrops of ruined technology, ancient stuff that even Kray’s rain could not rust or erode, and which endured, often hanging loose like nerves remaining from a lost limb.

  Graaff-lin, it seemed to Zinina, had begun to regret coming on this expedition. ‘Don’t worry,’ Zinina said soothingly, ‘there’s nothing active here now. It’s dead. Rien Zir’s moved up the Carmines.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t like it. Still, the Dodspaat will protect me from malign influences. Shall we look around?’ Graaff-lin paused, her gaze fixed upon Zinina’s face. ‘You don’t worship the Gedeese Veert, do you?’

  ‘I said before, no. I don’t worship anything.’

  With trepidation they walked under an arch and into the nearest section of the ruin. Here whole rooms survived, although they were choked with a tumble of roots and etiolated shoots, and Zinina, once again cleaning walls with water from last year’s gourds, was able to make out scenes of worship engraved in bas-relief, amongst the wasp holes and cracks. She felt a sense of wonder not felt since she explored the Cemetery’s mausoleums as a child. Here, as then, were sigils and images from ancient times. Women carried staves; women bathed one another with water and braided their hair; women gave birth. There were also interesting scenes of women initiating youths into the ways of sex, interesting because it seemed to Zinina that the smallest penis on show was longer than any she had seen in the Fish Chambers. And they all had balls. In the Fish Chambers, most men had one or even two undescended testicles.