Ammonite

by Nicola Griffith

  A sudden thought occurred to her. She tried the compass. The stones sent numbers flickering at random; useless. She was alone on Tehuantepec, plateau of myth and magic, strange beasts and wild tribes, with a malfunctioning compass, out of range of any communications relay, and with a SLIC that for all practical purposes was useless. Was this what had happened to Winnie Kimura?

  She awoke to dawn and hard‑edged thoughts. She was not going to end up like Winnie. The compass damage might be as temporary as her proximity to the stones. There was only one way to find out. She slithered from her nightbag. If the damage was irreversible, then she could probably retrace her path. Even with bad weather, it should not take her more than twenty days to get back to the valley. She would be safe there until either a satellite came in range of the new communications relay or the spring came and she could make her own way back, somehow, to Port Central.

  Pella whickered.

  She rolled the nightbag into her pack. The sooner she left, the better. She dragged her pack through the tent flap, stood and stretched, and looked around.

  Fear slapped the breath back into her lungs.

  She was surrounded by riders on motionless horses. Shrouded in mist, with only their eyes visible under frost‑rimed furs, they looked like apparitions of otherworld demons.

  Marghe lifted her arms to show she was weaponless and walked stiffly toward the nearest figure. When she stepped within the cloud of breath wreathing the horse, its rider snapped down her spear. The stone tip brushed the furs at Marghe’s belly, and she realized that stone could kill just as effectively as steel. The rider’s eyes were heavy‑lidded and light blue.

  The point of the spear did not waver a hair’s‑breadth as the rider pulled back her hood to show flame‑red braids and cheeks shining with grease.

  “Stranger, why do you stand in the ringstones of the Echraidhe?”

  The accent was difficult, but Marghe heard the cool lack of interest in her questioner’s voice and her throat closed with fear.

  “The penalty for soiling‑the stones of our ancestors is death.”

  The spear moved as the rider balanced it for a belly thrust. Fascinated, Marghe watched the point pull back for the disemboweling stroke.

  “Uaithne!”

  The spear before Marghe hesitated.

  “I forbid, Uaithne.” The voice was low and harsh.

  “Levarch, she is nothing. A burden.”

  A woman of middle years kneed her horse forward until she sat eye to eye with Uaithne. “I forbid.”

  Uaithne shrugged. “I obey the Levarch in all things.” She shouldered her spear.

  Marghe realized she was not to die alone and unremarked in a heap of her own entrails, and her legs sagged. The Levarch leaned down and supported her under the arms. She shouted at another rider. “Aoife, take up the stranger. Uaithne, bring her horse and goods.”

  Marghe hardly had time to understand the Levarch’s words. She saw a woman with dark features and a broken nose galloping at her, and then she was heaved across the bow of a saddle, bouncing uncomfortably on her stomach and clinging to the horse’s shaggy withers. She could barely breathe and thought she might vomit, but when she tried to struggle upright, the rider named Aoife thumped her over her right kidney. She stayed still, lace rubbing against the rough wool saddle blanket.

  The riders made swift time over the snow. Marghe hung on, sick and frightened, eyes closed against the thunder of hooves just below her face.

  The day wore on. Shock, cold, and hunger impaired Marghe’s control. She could not maintain an even blood flow around her dangling body and drifted in and out of consciousness. Once, swimming out of a daze, she struggled until Aoife struck her a ringing blow to the temple.

  The horses’ slowing roused her. One side of her face was scraped raw. The horses came to a halt, pawing and snorting, and Marghe heard Pella’s distinctive whicker. Aoife swung down from the saddle.

  Marghe lifted her head. There was no thump, no shout of warning. It was almost dark and she could not see much. She felt a hand on her belt and flinched.

  “Dismount.” Aoife pulled, hard. Marghe slid backward onto her feet and crumpled onto the snow. She stared at her legs stupidly. Someone laughed: Uaithne. Aoife hauled her upright. Standing, Marghe towered above her.

  “Open your clothes.” Aoife had a knife in her hand. “Open your clothes or I’ll cut them open.”

  Marghe pulled off her gloves. With the tip of her knife, Aoife pointed to the snow; Marghe dropped the gloves. Her fingers were stiff and she fumbled open the ties of her overfurs.

  “And the rest.”

  The buttons of her fur waistcoast and densely woven shirt were easier.

  “Hands on your head.”

  Marghe did as she was told. Aoife stepped in close and ran her free hand expertly over, between, and underneath the layers of clothing.

  “What’s this?” She pulled back the fur from the wristcom.

  “It… I talk to it, and it remembers. Like a mimic bird.” She hoped this tribeswoman had heard of the southern bird.

  “Show me.”

  Marghe touched RECORD. “Weapon violence is obviously a feature of these people’s lives,” she said. She played it back. The sound was tinny in the cold, thin air, but recognizable.

  “Give it to me.”

  Aoife felt around it for sharp edges, sniffed it, weighed it in her palm, hesitated, then slipped it into her belt pouch. She stood on Marghe’s boot tips, pinning her to the ground, and palmed her way down the inside and outside of both legs. She found the FN‑17. “This?”

  Sweat beaded on Marghe’s upper lip. She did not know the word for medicine. “It stops me becoming sick.”

  Aoife tucked it away with the wristcom. Hands back on her head, Marghe struggled to keep her face expressionless. Aoife stepped back and sheathed her knife. Marghe did not see where it went.

  “Fasten yourself up.”

  The tribeswoman marched her over to a mound of snow, then walked off.

  Marghe panicked. Were they going to leave her there without food or horse or vaccine? Wild‑eyed, she looked about her. No. They were hobbling the horses. Relief made her want to grin. She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “Do you enjoy freezing?”

  She jumped. Aoife stood there.

  “Here, under the snow–” the tribeswoman bent and brushed at the snow mound, “a shelter. It’s warmer.” She spoke slowly, as though to a half‑wit.

  That stung, but it was something Marghe could make sense of, something that had happened before, that she could respond to. “How was I to know you covered your tents with snow?”

  Aoife looked at her, then shrugged and walked back to the horses. Marghe wondered if it was her accent the tribeswoman had found difficult to deal with, or her ignorance. She resolved to watch, listen, and learn. Out here, ignorance might be a capital crime.

  When she thought no one was watching, she squatted and wriggled through the tiny entrance flap headfirst. It was light, and did not smell, which surprised her, and had room for three or four if they stayed prone. She lay there for a while, grateful for solid ground and a place away from curious eyes.

  She breathed in deeply through her nose, exhaled through her mouth. And again. Her heartbeat began to steady and her fear lessened. The basics always helped.

  What was her status: hostage, guest, slave? What would happen to her? She had no idea. She tried, instead, to organize her thoughts around questions she might be able to answer. Where was she? If the stones had not scrambled her compass irreversibly, she might be able to guesstimate her position. If she could get back her map. Where was her pack?

  She lay there listening to her heartbeat, reassuring and steady. If she was left here alone, it might be possible to creep out in the night, find her pack and her horse, and leave.

  In the dark, a dark without stars or moon?

  No. Tomorrow, then. For now, she would have to stay calm, wait and
watch. And think. She spoke the strange words aloud, Eefee, Waith‑nee, Lev‑ark, Eck‑rave, rolling them over her tongue, tasting them, testing: Gaelic names that had not been used on Earth for thousands of years.

  Aoife wriggled into the shelter, followed by two others. Not Uaithne. Marghe accepted the nightbag flung in her direction. Her own, she noted.

  “Sleep.”

  She followed the others’ lead, stripping off hood and boots and sliding fully clothed into her bag. She thought she saw a look of approval on Aoife’s dark and broken face.

  They were up the next day in the thin gray light before dawn. Marghe was not offered food, nor did she see any of the Echraidhe eating. They rolled up their nightbags, donned hoods and boots, and began unpegging and stowing the leather tents. Marghe wondered if Aoife still had the FN‑17. She could not escape without it.

  The small muscles over her ribs and stomach tightened in dread as Aoife walked a horse toward her. The bruises from yesterday’s journey were just beginning to show and her face was red as skinned meat.

  “Hold him.”

  Marghe took the rein. She did not know what else to do. Aoife strode off and returned with Pella. The tribeswoman stood by with folded arms while Marghe patted her mare and ran her hands down her neck. Her gear was neatly slung behind the saddle. She checked her pack and found it was all there, her FN‑17, her wristcom, her map. Only the knife and the food were missing. Her relief was so great, she nearly turned to Aoife and thanked her.

  The tribeswoman mounted and gestured for Marghe to do likewise. The other horses were wheeling and thundering northward.

  As they rode, Aoife pulled strips of dried meat from the pouch by her thigh. She handed some to Marghe. They slowed a little to eat and Marghe took the opportunity to strap the wristcom back across the pale skin over her left wrist. With it back in place she sat up straighter, could regard Aoife coolly, and she understood suddenly that her relief at the presence of the wristcom on her wrist was not just the practical comfort of having the compass: while she could record things, she still had a professional persona. She was Marguerite Angelica Taishan, the SEC rep; she was not lost and alone, helpless as any other savage on a horse.

  Aoife had the power to take away from her that so‑slender thread of identity any time she wished.

  She touched the compass function key. It seemed to be working. Good. She turned a casual circle in her saddle. She had horse, vaccine, map and compass. Aoife’s spear was strapped down securely and her small, shaggy mount was probably no match for the longer‑legged Pella at full stretch.

  Aoife was watching her. She tapped the sling at her belt. “I can kill a ruk with this at nine nines of paces. You–” she looked Marghe and her mount up and down, “you I could bring down before that summer mare lengthened her stride.”

  Marghe said nothing. Perhaps, if it came to it, Aoife would hesitate to kill.

  “A stone can stun a rider, as well as kill,” Aoife said.

  Marghe turned her face away, winced as the wind bit into her raw cheek.

  “Here.”

  Frustration made her angry, and stubborn. She refused to look at what Aoife offered.

  “Grease for your face.”

  Marghe ignored her. Aoife swung her mount in front of Marghe’s and wrenched them both to a halt. She pulled Marghe’s face to hers by the chin. Her eyes were flat and brown.

  “You will take this grease.”

  Marghe stared at Aoife’s broken nose, the thick white scar that writhed over her cheekbone, nose, and mouth, and made no move to take the small clay pot.

  Aoife sighed and pulled off a glove. “Hold still.” Strong blunt fingers smoothed the grease delicately over Marghe’s face. Nose first, forehead, chin, then cheeks. Marghe flinched, then relaxed. It did not hurt.

  “Close your eyes and mouth.”

  This time she obeyed, and Aoife stroked the thick, milk‑colored stuff onto her lips and eyelids. Then she stowed away her pot.

  Marghe touched her lips, the sore place on her cheek; the grease was a kindness. “Thank you.”

  Aoife nodded. “The others are far ahead.” They kicked their mounts into a gallop. Marghe checked her compass and saw that they galloped northwest. Ollfoss, and the forest, lay northeast.

  They rode hard for three days and Marghe began to understand Aoife’s contempt for Pella. The mare looked gaunt and dull‑eyed, while the shaggy horses seemed tireless. They ate on the move, strips of dried meat, and drank a sour, half‑frozen slush called locha. It was made from fermented taar milk. Marghe hated it, but she drank it; it put warmth in her gut.

  As they neared the main camp, the tribeswomen seemed to relax. They talked more among themselves. Marghe listened and learned: the triple handful of riders were returning from the annual ceremony at the ringstones.

  “Did I interrupt your ceremony?” she asked Aoife as they swung back into the saddle one afternoon.

  “It was finished. The Levarch was showing us the southern pasturelands. We were on our way home when Uaithne found you.”

  She remembered Uaithne’s threat. Intrusion in some religions carried an automatic death penalty. “Have I disturbed the… rightfulness of the stones for you?”

  “No.” Aoife paused. “It’s happened before. Twice.”

  Marghe’s heart thumped. Winnie? She licked her lips, swallowed. “What happened to the women?”

  Uaithne galloped past. Aoife shook her head and would not answer any more questions.

  At the end of the third day, they came to the winter camp of the Echraidhe.

  Chapter Five

  DANNER TURNED AWAY from the lists on her screen and looked instead at the tapestry on the wall behind her. It was an abstract of blues and golds about a meter square, a present from her deputy, Ato Teng, about a year ago. She wondered if Teng had made it herself, this marvelous picture that made her feel hollow inside, like homesickness. Or had the artist given it to Teng? In exchange for what? It bothered her that she did not know the answers to these questions, that she did not know her deputy well enough to even guess.

  Her office had no window. Port Central followed Company design: the nerve center, her office, was protected by myriad other rooms, corridors, and storerooms. There were no external signs for indigenes to read and follow; the usual procedure. More than one Company security installation had suffered sabotage. But here on Jeep, the precautions were ridiculous. The natives simply stayed away. Port Central had become a sophisticated prison for its inmates, while the natives roamed a whole world.

  She wished she had a window because sometimes, sitting here in her box of an office, with the air always the same temperature and officers all wearing the same uniform, she could believe that this was a normal situation, one that could be resolved by the application of all those wonderful scenarios and procedures taught at the academy in Dublin. But Jeep was not normal. What other Company planet was under the charge of a lieutenant?

  She fingered the insignia sealed to her epaulets. She might wear the two stars of a commander, but in her head she was still a lieutenant, playing at command, as though it were a test after which the real brass would unplug her from the simulator and point out all her mistakes, patting her on the back for any smart moves. But here there was no one to tell her if she had made any smart moves, no one to talk to about anything. Command isolated her more effectively than a deadly disease.

  When she had first realized how it was going to be, that she was the superior officer, she had been scared. Hundreds of people relied on her. Hundreds. In those first weeks she had been too scared, shaking too hard, to spend time with anyone. In front of others, she was not allowed to be Hannah Danner, the newest lieutenant on Jeep; she had to be Acting Commander Danner, the one with all the answers, her orders crisp, clear, and fast as the breaking of a bone. It reached the stage where she could not even bring herself to eat or drink in front of other officers. It took her a long time to learn that patterns of command were well laid; as long as wha
t she asked people to do made some kind of sense, they would be glad to have someone in charge. Then she relaxed a little. But the habit was already formed: isolation, loneliness, solitude.

  Her older sister, who had had more to do with bringing her up than her parents, had said it was never too late to start over. But Claire had been wrong about many things.

  Claire had taken her side against liberal parents who had been horrified when Hannah had announced she wanted to join up. It had been Claire who came to graduation and hugged her, then apologized for rumpling her dress uniform; Claire who told her, tears in her eyes, that there was nothing she could not do, if she wanted it badly enough, even to changing the world. She had believed that, then. That day in Dublin, with the air soft and green after an Irish rainfall, she had believed that she could make a difference–that in a few years she would be commander on some Company world, defending the rights of those who could not speak for themselves, making the opening up of a new world a thing of pride and wonder, not horror. Oh, yes, that day in Dublin she had believed, and had been proud to wear this uniform.

  Her desk chimed. Danner turned away from the tapestry as her screen windowed on Vincio’s face. She sighed, and touched the window, which expanded to fill the screen. The philosophy could wait.

  “Sergeant Lu Wai and Technicians Dogias and Neuyen are back, ma’am. Lu Wai and Dogias request a personal debriefing.”

  “What’s wrong with just putting the report on my desk?” Vincio, who always seemed to know when a question was rhetorical, said nothing. “They specifically asked for me, not Lieutenant Fa’thezam?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The sergeant said that what they wanted to talk about was more than a communications issue.”

  Lu Wai was a reliable officer, a good sergeant. If she was in such a hurry to get to the commander with this story, it meant trouble. “Tell them to be ready in one hour.”