Memory Seed

by Stephen Palmer

  Echoes of her voice, lacking volume and depth, entered her ears. She began again to feel cold, especially from the rock ledge, and she imagined that she might freeze against it, never to leave. She raised her head to look around.

  Attached to the ledge was a framework of metal tubes. It stretched in all directions, following the ledge, which lay a few yards below the roof, and stretching out into cavern space. The wall backing the ledge was filled with crevices and holes, none, unfortunately, big enough to climb through. Along the tubes hooks stood proud, and she realised that these were what victims hung suspended from. If only she could see better.

  From the top of her mind she drew images, trying to feel what might be possible. She smelled a familiar smell, and recalled something about fingernail mushrooms and a chemical found in some other fungus. Nearby she saw fingernail mushrooms. She picked one and found her way to the smell, then she rubbed the mushroom against the rock from which the odour came.

  Light: a photochemical reaction that might last ten minutes. And there were more mushrooms available.

  She made a foray along the ledge. After five minutes she turned back, having discovered only that the tube framework followed the ledges and was attached in places to the roof.

  Then she saw a footprint. She stooped to examine it. A boot, medium size, with furrowed grip – probably a Citadel Guard boot, something Zinina might have worn. Had Zinina ever been down here? But now she had a clearer picture of what happened, and she felt exhilaration. People came here! At some point in the future other victims might arrive. So she had to find exit points and a place to hide along the ledge.

  Returning to the mushrooms she prepared a new one, then explored in the opposite direction, passing two tunnels to other parts of the cavern, finding another, different bootprint. And then she noticed a circular door.

  Her mushroom was expiring. She went back to prepare a third, then returned. It was a wooden door lined with lead. She saw no keyhole, nor any sign of electronics. Most likely it was opened only from the outside. She would have to wait.

  She found a crevice – empty of denizens – and sat. Cold and hunger gnawed at her. Boredom arrived. Unable to stop imagining what might happen next, she found herself unable also to free her mind of its constraints. Until something happened she could not break free of black thoughts. She began cursing the authorities again.

  Time slipped by. Some hours seemed to pass quickly, others dragged. Moments were marked by faint screams from other places, and ripples far below. She dropped off into sleep; awoke, and relieved herself; started shivering; slept again.

  Click. She awoke. Her body was stiff and it was agony when she moved. She listened.

  ‘Which number?’ came a voice.

  ‘One nine eight’s free,’ replied another. The voices were lubricated by wine. Light from the circular hole hurt her eyes as she peered around. She saw two people with torches dragging a body already in its leather suit.

  Their backs were turned. She crept to the hole, looked out into a dim corridor lit by azure photoplankton tubes, a section that stretched for tens of yards each way. It was empty. She jumped out, her eyes pained, only just open, and clambered behind a square bank of pyuters.

  She knew she ought to rescue the prisoner, but she had no choice. It tore her heart to think that some human being would wake soon, as she had. She could not return into the cavern. Well, she could return, but she did not know where the prisoner was and she had to put herself first. Again: anger at the authorities, making her twist her fists and grit her teeth, and swear at their methods... at her own mother’s methods. She imagined herself escaped, pitting herself as a heroine against the Citadel.

  With clunking boots the guards returned, silent, slamming the door and shoving a catch. She caught a whiff of smoke and alcohol as they passed by. She felt guilt, a kind of tearful guilt.

  And she herself had not yet escaped. She was merely out of the cavern. She had two options: either enter the pyuter honeycomb and escape via the Power Station or by Zinina’s way, or leave through the Citadel Wall. The former was all but impossible and the latter impossible without a pass. And she urgently needed clothes. She could not stop shivering.

  Again she consulted her imagined images. She wondered if it might be possible to impersonate a guard. Perhaps there would be some in this building.

  She listened but heard nothing. Venturing from the pyuter bank, she ran left until at the end of the corridor she peered around a corner. There she saw cubby doors. She tip-toed up to one and opened it. Rifles. She took one.

  A swishing noise, as of someone walking, some way off; to her left, from where she had come. Ahead the passage narrowed into a dark room. She saw somebody, twenty yards away, plastic-suited and helmeted.

  She sat back in the corner, and aimed a yard and a half up, tensing her muscles, looking down the sights. When a chest appeared she fired.

  Sssst. The guard was down. She did not twitch.

  Arrahaquen looked at the woman. There was no blood, and she had only stunned her.

  She was a tall woman, and thin, and at first Arrahaquen’s fingers trembled too much for her to undo the catches. She gripped her fingers together, prayed to the goddess, then found herself calmed. Within a minute the suit was off. She did not think there was time enough to remove the undersuits, and anyway that could have been restraining, not to mention biologically hazardous, so she slipped on the suit. It caught her naked skin and hurt as she moved, and it was much too tight about her hips.

  She removed the helmet and put it on. On side screens she saw glowing information: maps, letters, numbers – a constellation of glowing sigils. Nothing made sense.

  ‘Uh, Ohoequa, anything wrong down there?’

  The voice inside her helmet made her jump. She looked down at the body through her tinted visor. Her victim seemed younger. The light balance was different – darker, yet clearer.

  ‘Hello, Ohoequa. Hello?’

  She ran back up the corridor, knowing she had to put distance between herself and Ohoequa. Steps appeared, and these she ran up, noticing numbers as she went, numbers painted in a style she recognised.

  ‘Ohoequa, please reply.’ Fainter: ‘... what? ... you think it’s the transceivers...’

  A floor appeared labelled ‘0G’. She looked out into a hallway, noticed two suited women walking away, and watched where they went. The wall opened up and there was a glimpse of black.

  She followed. The door opened. She was outside. It was night, drizzle falling, and she was in the Citadel, high up to the north-east.

  The street was illuminated in browns and yellows, white shapes occasionally blinking. A sign shone: ‘Gugul St et’.

  She felt vulnerable, as though watched by electronic eyes through the antennae of her helmet. What if they could follow her trace? She walked downhill, making for the east gate. So far she did not know how this last barrier could be crossed.

  She heard a rumbling sound. To her right, a shape appeared.

  ‘Who’re you?’

  It was somebody on a motorbike, suited, helmeted.

  ‘What?’ she replied, without thinking.

  ‘Where did you get that rifle?’ The guard dismounted and the bike grew four hairy legs to balance itself.

  Arrahaquen hefted the gun, as though to show the guard. Then she swung, twisting her shoulders, and hit out with every piece of her strength. Surprised, the guard toppled over. Arrahaquen jumped on to the motorbike and gripped the handle that operated the throttle. She had not needed to think. She just acted.

  The bike squirmed beneath her, its leather seat rocking from side to side as though it could detect the presence of a stranger, but then it roared away, almost knocking Arrahaquen off, dials flickering, steam venting from the ends of the handlebars. Ten seconds later she crossed into Bog Street, ignoring the groups of defenders strolling down Rosinante Street to her left, bouncing down steps towards the north gate, until it appeared as sparks of red and white, and she slowed
. Approaching, the glittering gate resolved itself into lamps and suited shadows, and chunks of machinery perched on poles.

  ‘Identify yourself, please.’ A voice in her helmet.

  Arrahaquen refrained from answering. Twenty yards away, three Citadel Guards leant against their cabin. She slowed right down, and fiddled with a chest pocket in pretence of finding a pass.

  ‘Hello?’ said somebody.

  ‘Escapee!’ came a faint voice.

  She ducked and sped through, catching a glimpse of a rifle butt missing her. She was in Malmsey Street. Light sparked around her, and she saw adjacent houses flashing white. Then something hit her right hand. The motorbike skidded, dropped to the right, and she felt a detonation vibrate the machine. She fell into a gutter, her hand in agony.

  The gate was a hundred yards back. Four Citadel Guards were closing, firing as they ran. Arrahaquen disentangled herself from the spark-spitting motorbike, but was momentarily stunned by a wail of pain from the machine, an almost human scream that became throaty, then dropped to nothing. She ran into an alley, undoing helmet straps as she went, sure that it could be tracked. She removed the helmet and threw it into a pool.

  Here, the alleys were flooded in places, so she chose higher passages between dead houses. In a flooded culvert she paused. Voices, running boots, heard through swishing water... not close, but not far.

  Then she saw abandoned clothes in an alcove.

  She looked down at her suit, now blood stained, and saw other electronic points that might serve to betray her. The clothes had been folded into two neat piles – breeches, a wool cardigan, leggings, two vests, elbow gloves, one boot. Unusually, nothing was labelled. In Kray everybody’s clothes had their name and kit number sewn or written inside because of the danger of disease. To wear unknown clothes was tantamount to suicide in some quarters. This lot looked as though lovers had left them during some suicide pact – which was not unusual.

  She examined them. They were still dry, indicating that they were recent, perhaps a remnant of Beltayn, and nothing had yet started to grow inside. Nothing visible, at least. She felt that she could wear them for half an hour in order to escape. The risk was acceptable.

  More shouts, closer now. Choosing a dry patch, checking for vermin, of which there were none, she disrobed and put on the found clothes. A second boot she improvised from the gloves. Peering out, she decided to move. An alley led into Min Street, and soon she was jogging up the street. By the red sandstone Pyramid Bridge she paused, looking east to the Citadel, exhilarated, knowing now that she had escaped. She turned and ran along the river, bypassing what looked like a local zone wired off, until she neared Onion Street, from where it was but minutes to Graaff-lin’s house.

  Nervous energy made her limbs feel a little disconnected, and her throat very dry. She slowed to a walk. The drizzle had intensified into a rank rain that seemed to stick to her skin like slime. Guns and rifles were firing nearby, perhaps east along Arrowmint Street, and, dimly reflected by the night’s cloud mass, she saw pale lights flickering, eerily out of synchrony with the crashes and detonations. Now she felt drained.

  She noticed that the Old Quarter had become greener. Apart from the houses with roofs sliding off into the streets, and the fields of grass and weeds that seemed to be growing out of every passage, differences included saplings growing from mounds of earth surrounded by shattered cobbles, leafy bushes everywhere, walls plump with moss, and poking from many windows the signs of internal invasion – hemp lianas, sheaves of rose briars, poison ivy and poison moonsbane.

  Graaff-lin’s house remained upright. But Arrahaquen noticed cracks under the eaves, slates fallen, and also, most worryingly of all, what seemed to be a bulge in the wall on the far side. The garden was a jungle. Tentatively, she tip-toed through to the front door, jumping when a fat spider hissed at her.

  There must be a power cut: no door pyuter, only candles lit inside. Arrahaquen’s heart was thumping. She had become very nervous. She wished she had a mirror in which to improve her appearance.

  She knocked. Waited.

  ‘Who is it?’ Zinina’s voice.

  ‘It’s me. Let me in.’

  A pause. That was understandable. ‘Who? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘It’s me, Zinina. I can’t shout. Let me in!’

  The door opened just enough for a shadowy figure to peer out; then it opened fully.

  ‘Rien Zir,’ Zinina said. She stood rigid with shock.

  Arrahaquen entered the house. It seemed hot to her – she was still shivering – and very bright. Her eyes hurt.

  ‘Rien Zir,’ Zinina repeated. She slammed the door shut.

  ‘It is me,’ Arrahaquen said. ‘Save your speech. I’ve got to shower and clean myself up. These aren’t my clothes.’

  Zinina found nothing to say. Arrahaquen made for the shower room, shedding clothes as she went, but was disconcerted to see Zinina nip past her and stop somebody leaving a room. ‘Er,’ she said, ‘we got somebody staying here... um...’

  ‘No time now,’ Arrahaquen said.

  Graaff-lin appeared; she also stood still, frightened, as if she was watching an apparition.

  ‘It is me, Graaff-lin,’ said Arrahaquen. ‘I’ve got to shower and get medicines. See you in a minute.’

  Zinina helped her set up the shower. Over her shock, her face now bright with glee, she asked what had happened. Arrahaquen declined to say. ‘Let me get clean,’ she said. ‘Let me get clean, then I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Uqallavaz tq! Have we got some news for you.’

  ‘Put that antibiotic sachet in the shower-head.’

  ‘Graaff-lin’s been working hard. Gosh, you look thinner.’

  ‘Fetch my kit from the green zone, would you?’

  A laser ray had scored the palm of her hand. Wincing with pain, she cleaned the wound.

  She showered in the pink medicated water, then took six different antibiotic capsules, each dedicated to a particular urban disease, and clipped a time-delayed antibiotic to the side of her mouth. Finally, she doused her runny eyes with drops. Her body ached, and she felt ill with hunger – almost sick – but she knew she was free.

  She dressed in a cotton bath-gown. The other two were in the sitting room. The other three!

  Arrahaquen physically jumped when she saw the man sitting next to Zinina, and shrank back against the door.

  ‘It’s a friend,’ Zinina said, smiling. ‘He’s perfectly safe. He’s really helped us.’

  ‘The name is deKray, ma’am,’ the man said.

  To Arrahaquen he seemed somewhat stocky in build, with deep brown eyes and a beaky nose. His manner was confident, his voice jovial yet restrained, as though he were some sort of actor. Blue bacteria tubes set around the walls reflected off his bald head.

  ‘Oh,’ she managed.

  ‘He does take some getting used to.’

  A loose man in this house? Arrahaquen sat in the chair furthest from deKray. ‘He’s not infectious, you know,’ Zinina said.

  ‘I’m sure not.’

  ‘I mean,’ Zinina continued, ‘he’s not got the pestilence. He’s not going to kill you sitting here, Arrahaquen.’

  Arrahaquen nodded. ‘I’m sure he won’t.’

  Zinina sat back. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  ‘If I might make an observation here,’ deKray said. ‘The charming lady, the daughter of Ammyvryn if my faulty old memory recalls aught of correctness, is of course perplexed to see a real man in her house, when no doubt the only other masculine forms she has scrutinised have either been in the Fish Chambers or in books or on pyuter screens. I think we are all mature enough to allow her a frisson of surprise.’

  Subdued, Zinina nodded, and began, with interruptions from Graaff-lin, to relate what had happened to them, only to stop a minute later and ask after Arrahaquen. Arrahaquen duly told her story, which none of them believed except deKray.

  ‘I have read legends of the horror under Gugul Street,’ he mused, �
�in books written a short time after the Citadel tumulus was grown, but nothing written comes close to your experience. What a most remarkable young woman you are. If I were a risible man I should toast you with laughter, Arrahaquen. If I were a theist I would kneel and pray for what could only be seen as a guerdon of divine plenipotence. Do you mind if l imbibe?’

  He took out a piece of paper and some herbs, and a match.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Arrahaquen.

  ‘Thank you kindly.’

  ‘I must eat,’ Arrahaquen said. ‘And drink some more.’

  Zinina followed her into the kitchen. For a few minutes in silence they prepared food, before Zinina began talking about how deKray had rescued her, how she had checked his credentials, seen his maisonette, and how he had assisted Graaff-lin in her research. And how she liked him.

  They all sat in the study. Noticing that Graaff-lin looked uncomfortable, Arrahaquen asked, ‘How far have you got searching for the noophytes?’

  ‘Not far. All I can do is speak with the serpents. Still I only know one word of noophyte speech. It is frustrating.’ Bitterly she added, ‘Having so many guests makes it difficult to concentrate.’

  Glancing at deKray, Arrahaquen mumbled, ‘Yes... yes, I can see it could be difficult.’ Embarrassed, she tried to wriggle the fingers of her bandaged hand, but they were numb and immobile.

  Zinina railed at Graaff-lin’s hint. ‘You never said anything before. What, you want me to leave just because I’m friendly with deKray?’

  Graaff-lin said nothing. As gently as she could, Arrahaquen said, ‘I have nowhere to go, Graaff-lin. I daren’t stay at the Spired Inn any more...’

  Suddenly Graaff-lin stood. Face flushed, she said, ‘I will not have a worshipper of the Gedeese Veert under my roof! This home is hallowed to the Dodspaat alone. Already you have defiled it. How dare you suggest that you stay here?’

  Stunned by this outburst, Arrahaquen stood, and when she did Zinina followed suit. Aware that a nasty atmosphere was building, Arrahaquen tried to think of a solution. She began, ‘I don’t ha–’

  ‘No,’ Graaff-lin declared. ‘You will not stay here.’