Clockwork Memories

by Sarina Dorie

  I looked to Jacques. “You will permit me to see her?”

  His eyes were sad. “Better you than me, perhaps.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “When the drugs wore off last, I tried to console her, but she fell into a fit of screaming and then she fainted.” He cleared his throat. “I thought this time might be more successful with you here.”

  “That’s why you wanted me found?” My eyes narrowed with suspicion. I didn’t buy his story.

  “Mon Dieu!” He broke into a string of French words. “Until you started killing off my men that was the reason.”

  I smiled and bowed as if he had thanked me. “How many are left?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know!” He tugged at the hem of his blue and gold coat and looked away. He suddenly reminded me of a nervous boy on his first hunting trip, awkward and not knowing what to do. “I need your help. I don’t know enough about the memory exchange and how it works. I want to know if you can make her like before.” For the briefest of seconds, he didn’t sound French at all. His accent reminded me of Meriwether. I noted the incongruity, hoping to make sense of it later.

  I sat down on the bed beside Faith. There was a good chance the concern in his human eye was play acting. He might be tricking me as he once had so long ago. If he could exploit my weakness to reveal what he wanted, he would. Yet when I looked into his face and recognized something as close to love and concern as I had ever seen in him, I knew I could do some exploiting of my own.

  “She might not recover,” I said. “Some don’t after dosha kuzure. Her sister gave to my brother accidentally in a memory mudslide. Neither were themselves for a long time. Even after seven years, Felicity wasn’t the same.”

  “How do you know about Felicity Earnshaw?” he asked, eyebrow arched with suspicion more than surprise.

  “I met her on Aynu-Mosir when Meriwether Klark brought her to the planet.”

  “Ah.” He tugged at his beard, considering that. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Felicity. He might not have known she was on my planet. “So she was no longer in Lord Klark’s care. I suppose Faith knew that. She was better at pretending than I’d bargained.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Let him think she was guileless and inept.

  “How do you know her?” I asked.

  “I met her long ago. In another life. She was Lord Klark’s captive.”

  All this was more than I expected him to share, but then, what harm could this information cause. It might not even be true.

  Jacques smoothed a blonde curl from Faith’s forehead. “Faith was always fine when she and I performed memory exchange. Even when she gave me all her memories of me.”

  I pushed his hand off her. “As I recall, you didn’t stay long enough to be sure.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You are toying with me now.”

  “You didn’t take her memories by force. It makes a difference. She experienced confusion, but without the fear.”

  He turned away and paced the room. As much as the thudding rhythm of his boots grated on my nerves, I ignored him. I took Faith’s hand in mine. She moaned. Her brow furrowed and her breathing quickened.

  Jacques was beside me in an instant. He watched her face smooth into a mask of calm once again. He nodded as if making up his mind. “You have less than a week to make this right.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We will arrive on the other side of the galaxy in seven days. I will deliver Meriwether and the prototype to Lord Klark at that time. I would like Faith’s memories returned to her before then.”

  “And what if she isn’t well enough for that?”

  “Then she will never be reunited with her memories. Lord Klark will have his son, more or less in one piece after I am done with him, and we will be gone in the blink of an eye.”

  “What does that mean? More or less in one piece?” The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  “Never you mind. You focus on nursing her to health, oui?”

  Faith cried out in her sleep. It took time for the brain to adjust to someone else’s memories, especially if there were many of them. Sometimes the mind cycled through the gifted memories, trying to make sense of the foreignness of them as they took a deeper root. I guessed this was what she was going through as she slept.

  Jacques began to ask another question. “Tell me about—”

  “If she is to get well, she needs to rest. Without the presence of anyone she might find threatening.” I raised an eyebrow.

  He withdrew.

  Faith had not been like this when she had given Jacques her memories. That had been a small bundle, and this was a mountain’s worth. Plus, this was the opposite process. She’d received memories, not given them, though how many she’d been given I couldn’t tell.

  The silence gave me time to think, mostly about things I would rather have not thought about: Eli’s betrayal; the young man who reminded me of my niece who I had killed; and the fate of my family and all those I knew if Jacques or Lord Klark succeeded in their mission to make a faster engine that would use the animals of my planet. Only, I couldn’t tell if they understood how easy it was to produce the chiramantep stones.

  Did they know memory moss was the secret?

  I had believed all my life that my planet alone had the herb we called memory moss. Faith had told me so. It didn’t exist anywhere else in the known galaxy. Yet memory moss was key to making chiramantep stones, and these stones were instrumental to the technology Eli had shown me that my ancestors had used long ago to get to the planet.

  That meant memory moss wasn’t a native species to my planet, nor were the chiramanteps. They’d been brought to my world by my ancestors. Meriwether had suspected as much. Eli was smart enough he would figure it out sooner or later and tell his superiors, though, I didn’t know if sooner would be in a day or a week.

  Jacques wouldn’t be able to get the secret out of Meriwether, but he’d be able to get it out of Faith if he discovered she knew it. He’d be able to get it out of me. But surely Meriwether Klark had more he’d wanted to keep from Jacques than that, as he must have known I knew this secret and he hadn’t made me give it to Faith.

  When Faith’s eyes at last opened, she raised a hand to cover them.

  “How do you feel?” I asked in Jomon.

  She took in a sharp breath and scooted away from me.

  I didn’t want to startle her again, so I used English. “Do you know me?”

  “Sumiko,” she said.

  I put a finger to my lips to keep her from saying more. I didn’t know what kind of eel-armed robots Jacques kept in the room to listen to us. “Hush. Let me soothe you like I always did back home with a lullaby.”

  Her brow wrinkled in confusion. She must have had a good grasp of the situation since I never soothed her with lullabies, and she didn’t openly argue with me about it. I switched back to Jomon. This trick wasn’t guaranteed to work. Jacques spoke Jomon. He might have even heard the rowing song while on my planet. I could only hope he didn’t know the way it worked.

  I sang quietly, in the hope I would be too soft to overhear:

  “Out of waters deep

  Into rivers blue

  From the skies so sweet

  We row through and through.”

  Faith tried to sit up. “I don’t want to hear a blasted rowing song. I need you to tell me—”

  I pressed a finger to her lips and shook my head. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination or Faith sounded more British. I didn’t want Jacques to hear that and make the correct conclusion.

  I sang:

  “Out of waters deep

  Into rivers blue

  From the skies so sweet

  The gaijin listens to us anew.”

  She tilted her head to the side. She scratched her chin in a way a man might who expects to feel stubble. Her every gesture reminded me of Meriwether. I didn’t like that.

  I sang:

  “Out o
f waters deep

  Into rivers blue

  From the skies so sweet

  He mustn’t suspect me or you.”

  Understanding crossed her face before it smoothed back into a neutral expression. My words were limited by rhyme, and there were times I hummed as I selected my words for the next stanza. She listened to me, patiently wading through the song for the last line. After a time, my words formed a coherent sentence.

  “He must not know it’s him inside you,” I sang another stanza before adding, “You must scream and faint when he comes to you.”

  She gave a small nod.

  I added to the last line, “Do anything to avoid questions, too.”

  She nodded again.

  “If he suspects, he may torture you.”

  She sang back:

  “Out of waters deep

  Into rivers red

  I need you to tell me

  If I have shot him dead.”

  I nearly laughed at her quick thinking, but stopped myself just in time, as I didn’t want to draw attention to us should we be overheard. Better they think we sang the same song over and over and paid us no mind at all. Fortunately, Faith’s high, sweet voice overcame her lack of meter and would have distracted any listener. She’d always been the better singer of the two of us. It was too bad it took a life or death situation to milk a song out of her.

  I sang the stanza, adding at the last line, “He lives, but in the hospital it is true.”

  She sang, adding to the last line. “How can we save him, Sumiku?”

  I shook my head. That end was clearly cheating. “How much of him lives within you?”

  “I am complete and two.”

  It didn’t surprise me Jacques rushed in moments later. “You have cured her, n’est-ce pas?”

  Faith, to her credit stared blankly forward, continuing to sing the rowing song:

  “Out of waters deep

  Into rivers blue

  From the skies so sweet

  We row because we like to.”

  “Hush!” I put a finger to my lips and whispered. “Don’t interrupt her.”

  Faith’s voice was so mournful as it crooned the stanza over and over, it would have broken my heart if I hadn’t known it was a song about rowing.

  Tears filled Jacques’ eyes. “I don’t understand. What does she say? Why is she singing about . . . hunting? No, sailing?”

  For the first time, I wondered if his Jomon might not be as good as he let on.

  “It’s a song about rowing,” I said with a shrug. I translated one version of the verse.

  “Why would she sing that?” he demanded.

  “It might be all she remembers.”

  “Tell me exactly how this works. Her memories are inside her still, but they are . . . how do you say? Inactive? Temporarily inactive? You can revive them, or must they be returned by the one who has them?”

  “They must be returned,” I said.

  Faith sang, “Row, row, row your steamship, gently down the galaxy. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a . . . a. . . .” Her brow furrowed. She sniffled and looked to me. She was doing a better job pretending than she’d ever done before. Meriwether should have given her more of himself sooner.

  Jacques swallowed. “How soon can her memories be returned to her?”

  “Just look at her. How can you ask that? Your very presence disturbs her, ne? What did you do to her before Meriwether took her memories?”

  She giggled and started the song again. He took me by the arm, forcing me from the bed and into the corner. He didn’t take his eyes from her for a second. “Tell me how soon you can make her normal.”

  It wasn’t difficult to feign exasperation. “That depends on her condition and his. Memory moss doesn’t work on damaged tissue.”

  He tugged at the front of his jacket. “The surgeon is working on that. The French have some of the best doctors in the galaxy, n’est-ce pas? Our advances in medicine and biomechanics are years farther along than the British.”

  “Is that so?” I let my gaze fall upon the metal covering his eye. I didn’t hide the disgust from my face.

  “That was by choice, merci beaucoup.”

  I doubted that would be the end to the questions he would put to me, but if I was careful, I might be able to redirect questions about memory exchange back to Faith and her condition to distract him.

  Faith went back to the Jomon rowing song. She ended the last stanza with: “He’s a big pile of poo.”

  I nearly burst out laughing. I returned to her under the pretense of comforting her, but instead I pinched her arm.

  As soon as Jacques left, Faith winked at me. She wandered around the room, petting her hairbrush and throwing her clothes from the drawers. She acted like a madwoman. I might have believed her to have turned inward and lapsed into madness, except there was a shrewd determination in the set of her mouth when she made eye contact with me.

  She pressed buttons at the holoscreen before making mewing noises at her box of ribbons. Pictures flashed across the vanity mirror, showing it was more than a dressing table. It was like the screen on the bridge used to communicate and relay information. She acted as though she ignored it, though she peeked at it out of the corner of her eye. I couldn’t read what lines of text flashed over the screen. She dragged her palm against the mirror. An image of strange animals appeared. She dragged her hand again and I saw fashionable clothes like the ones she liked to wear.

  She was licking the mirror when Jacques strode in.

  “What is she doing?” Jacques asked.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps trying to remember.”

  Jacques touched a finger to a square on the screen. The picture darkened and returned to the normal state of the mirror. He took her hand and guided her toward the bed. “Rest, mon âme.”

  She recoiled from his touch. She screamed so loudly, even I flinched back. “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked.

  He backed away scowling. He pointed a finger at me. “If I find out you’re setting her against me, I’ll make you pay. I’m watching you.”

  I had suspected as much. “How am I to plot against you when she’s licking the mirror and trying to drink from that bowl in the water closet?” I managed to say it with a straight face.

  His face crinkled up in disgust. “You mustn’t permit her to do such things.”

  He stalked out.

  Over the next few days Jacques came to observe her less frequently. As a result, he didn’t catch her in the act of taking apart her vanity. She found two listening devices, one inside her machine and the other in the wall.

  “There might be more,” she mouthed to me.

  Soon she made use of the computer and spying devices, viewing each room of the starship. Considering Faith could hardly remember how to turn on the lights or open a locked door on the vessel, this had to be Meriwether’s knowledge working inside her.

  She clicked a button on the vanity. It showed Jacques on the bridge. Two men accompanied him. As she flipped from room to room, I counted soldiers. She flipped to the engine room showing Eli and another a soldier there at the door. Faith moved on to another room.

  “Go back,” I said in Jomon.

  She did so. I watched Eli construct his strange looking chair. He was facing away and they were small on the screen, so much so that I couldn’t make out any real details other than the machine was farther along than before. When Eli stopped for a minute to stretch, the soldier marched over and shook him by the collar.

  “Good call. You see it too, do you not?” Faith nodded.

  “What? How French pirates treat human beings?”

  “No, the engine. Look how that chap has altered it. What do you suppose he’s done to my engine?”

  “Your engine?”

  She tapped a finger against the glass. “Meriwether’s engine, I mean.”

  “He—she—he made it fast. One jump from anywhere, he said.” I wasn’t sure if Eli’s identity as a man had b
een a pretense to gain my sympathy or how he truly considered himself.

  “You spoke with the engineer then?” Faith asked.

  I swallowed. “More than spoke.” I could have kicked myself for how stupid I’d been to trust a stranger.

  She turned to face me. “Did he do something to you? Hurt you?”

  “No.” I looked away. Not how she meant anyway. Jacques knew me well enough to know how best to set me up. He’d known a woman would capture me in a way no man could. “Show me how you do that.” I pointed to the screen. “When you sleep, I will keep my eyes on Jacques. When I sleep, you shall, ne?”

  She shook her head as if in utter disbelief. “You’re as sharp as a razor.”

  She showed me how to work the controls of the screen. The default was set to an image of fashionable ladies’ clothes from the catalogue. Not a bad idea considering that would be about as far as Faith might delve into the ship’s computers on a normal basis.

  She offered to take the first shift of spying while I slept.

  “Are you certain?” I asked. “You’ve been through much.”

  “No rest for the wicked.” She turned back to the computer.

  I woke to the sound of voices. For a moment I would have sworn Meriwether was in the room. Faith’s face was illuminated by the mirror screen of the vanity. Her voice came out deeper, her American accent gone. She sounded British. Meriwether’s arrogance laced her words. “We can’t very well expect Jacques to remain patient forever. I daresay, even if he does believe us, he’ll eventually try to force a memory exchange with my body to gain knowledge of all I know. What will he conclude when it doesn’t work? This little plan of ours won’t last forever. It’s only buying time.”

  I watched through half-slitted eyes. Her posture changed. Faith’s voice became the high, sweet resonance I recognized as hers. “Oh dear! If he doesn’t try to force information from you through memory exchange, then he’ll resort to torture to learn more about the suffrage movement. Or about the chiramantep stones. Why must he be like that?”