Truth Sister

by Phil Gilvin

  The staff filed out, all talking at once, and the little corridor filled with noise. Some women were declaring that the plans were the most sensible thing they’d ever heard, while others were certain that everyone would be massacred. An owl-eyed woman near Clara was sure the enemy would never reach Oxford, and that even if they did, the soldiers would hold them back; but someone else was saying, ‘If they get this far, that means they’ve already beaten our girls.’

  Keeping her back to the corridor wall, Clara squeezed through the crush and eventually reached Reception, where several knots of women were chattering. She slumped down on a chair and put her face in her hands for a moment, trying to take in what she’d heard. Every day at school, every day at the Academy, she’d been taught that books were the Last Great Hope. Now that men had spent all the world’s energy, computers were useless and the Old Knowledge could only be found in books. It was through books that the world would get back on its feet again. Books were sacred. And now the Republic, her Republic, the system that had nurtured her, was trying to win its wars by destroying those books, by laying whole libraries waste. All right, those libraries were, or might soon be, in enemy hands – but there was so much that could be lost for ever if any library, any book were destroyed. That’s what they’d told her, that’s who she was – a Truth Sister …

  She looked up. A couple of women had already noticed the young stranger behaving oddly. She stood, pretended to shake herself, and made for the front door. But then she stopped. Where was she going now? She had no plan. There was nothing for it, she thought – she’d have to ask.

  The receptionist looked over the top of her glasses. ‘Nowhere to stay?’ she said. ‘You’ve left it a bit late, haven’t you?’

  ‘Er, things were a bit difficult – with all the soldiers,’ said Clara.

  ‘Well, let’s see. There’s a hostel off Walton Street – here’s their card. They might have some rooms yet.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Clara, and walked off as fast she could, without seeming to hurry. The receptionist stared after her.

  Clara stopped to buy a news-sheet, partly because she needed to ask directions again. The vendor pointed at the headline, and shook her head. ‘Looks serious this time,’ she said, exhaling smoke from a cheap cigarette. ‘They reckon the Millanders have got ten thousand infantry, and five thousand guns. Mutant men ten feet tall, and women that can crush you in their fists, if you believe half the rumours.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Clara, handing over a coin. ‘And what do you believe?’

  The woman looked up at the lowering clouds. ‘Here’s the rain again,’ she said. ‘Well, I reckon, at times like these, it’s best to have your bags packed, and keep ’em that way.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Clara, thinking to herself that all she had to pack was a bit of dry bread and some mouldy cheese.

  Despite the woman’s advice, Clara got lost twice more before she found herself at the right end of Walton Street. Thick drops fell from the dark clouds, and puddles formed rapidly under her feet. With the news-sheet for an umbrella she turned down a side-street, passing an old car park full of rusting hulks that no-one had reclaimed yet.

  ‘Spare some change?’ came a voice.

  Clara looked around and saw, crouching in a shallow doorway, a woman with lank hair hanging down her face and a shawl drawn tight round her shoulders. But the face – the face looked just like Sophia’s, and for a moment Clara felt the ground heave beneath her. Then, as she looked, she saw the differences in the eyes, the chin, the nose, that told her she was mistaken. Still, the likeness was remarkable – except that Sophia didn’t have three fresh, parallel scars down her right cheek. Not last time I saw her, at any rate, thought Clara.

  The woman shifted on her haunches and looked up at Clara with big eyes. ‘It’s not for me – it’s for my girl. She’s ill, sick.’

  ‘What happened to your face?’ said Clara.

  The woman cast her gaze down.

  ‘Someone did this to you, didn’t they? Who was it?’

  ‘Who d’you bloody well think?’ the woman grunted. ‘Just cos I lost my cloning licence.’

  ‘Repsegs?’

  ‘I had a licence, I know I did – but they gave me a night in the cells all the same.’ She shuddered. ‘The girl with the blade, she knew how to use it. Gave me these first, then all she had to do was wave it at me after that, and I was screaming like me lungs’d break. When I came out, me house was gone. I’d got Solly away – friends, y’know – else they’d have had her in, too.’

  ‘How d’you mean, your house was gone?’

  ‘They’d been in, changed the locks, put new tenants in. All legal, they said.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Dunno. Die, I expect.’

  Clara fished in her bag. ‘Look, here’s bread, and cheese – and here’s some money. Don’t die – that’s just what they want you to do.’

  For the rest of way to the hostel, Clara kept looking behind her. It was becoming second nature.

  The hostel was dingy and smelt of bad drains; but at least the rain didn’t follow her indoors. The tiny, hawk-faced receptionist watched as Clara signed the guest-book, trying not to drip on it.

  ‘You’re never Harriet Butcher!’ said the receptionist. ‘I know her – big woman, from some school up in London. You’re not her!’

  Clara swallowed. ‘Same name,’ she stammered. ‘I was at the Academy, too. Ms Butcher taught me. They didn’t half tease me about it.’ She tried to smile, then gave up.

  The woman pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they want to be more careful when they’re givin’ out names, don’t they?’ She pointed at a notice on the desk. ‘Ten boudicks, you pay a night at a time. Here’s your key. Room 34, upstairs. Dinner’s at seven, through there.’

  The food was basic and sparse, but Clara supposed it was the best they could do. The hostel was busy, and she found it easy to hide unnoticed at the end of a long table as she sucked her overdone cabbage. Exhausted, she dragged herself to her room and splashed some water on her face at a tiny sink with a single tap. Mosquitoes whined around the ceiling; a gutter dripped outside. The night was warm and sticky, and when Clara undressed there was no breeze to cool her skin.

  She stared out at the charcoal clouds that frowned over the rooftops. And again, the thought of Jack came into her head. Where was he? She could do with an argument now. She thought of the beggar she’d met, close to starving; and of Amy, hunted and filled with hatred, shot and maybe dead. But when Clara got into the bed, lumpy though the mattress was, it was bliss after so many nights lying on the ground. She fell straight asleep, and dreamed she was swirling in a glass of water, waiting to be swallowed.

  When morning came Clara prised herself out of bed where, to judge by the pink spots on her arms and legs, she’d been on something’s menu. Downstairs in the dining-room, a dozen women were slurping their way through breakfast, talking little and gazing out at the grey downpour. Clara decided she couldn’t face the thin, scalding coffee, so she grabbed a glass of tap water to go with her one slice of bread and her one hard egg.

  She decided that she had to use her time in the Bodleian wisely. She’d been lucky so far, but for how long would that continue? Her chances of finding out what had become of her parents (she was getting used to the word) were slim. There would be no public records of what they’d done with criminals, even assuming the Republic had kept any. She grimaced when she recalled that awful evening when she’d yelled at Sophia and James for making her a Natural, and how dirty, how betrayed she’d felt. But that was a long time ago, before things changed. Before she’d found things out.

  And what had she found out? The Republic encouraged Geemos. The Repsegs, and no doubt the army, had been grown to order. Designed to serve, then die. Genetic modifications, produced by the same people who’d made those snarling beasts at Beale. What else, she wondered, had the Republic lied about? She took another swig of the sickly-sweet water. Of
the tap water that had Waterco’s Aquaster in it. Catwall, Bella, Dr Daniels; and Clara now remembered reading something similar, a lifetime ago at the Ministry: Emmeline Anger had claimed it could make you infertile. She would, she decided, go back to the Bodleian for the morning. Then she’d better get out of Oxford before they issued her with a rag and some matches, or before the Millanders came to kill everyone.

  Leaving the hostel with her all-too-light rucksack slung over a shoulder, Clara thought she’d better tell the receptionist that she wouldn’t be back. A couple of other guests were checking out, and while they kept the receptionist busy, Clara peered over the desk at the names in the guest-book. “A. Smith” didn’t sound very likely, and “K. Young” was boring. “H. Mandeath” sounded like some zealous daughter of the Republic who’d changed her name by deed-poll, and “R. Whitebottom” must have, Clara thought, spent her whole life as the butt of other people’s jokes. Ha bloody ha. But the smirk was wiped off her face by the next name: late last night someone called “M. Carrow” had checked in.

  Slowly, she stood back from the desk and glanced up and down the hallway. Apart from the receptionist and the women at the desk – neither of whom was her old deputy head – there was no-one about. Quietly, she slipped down the hall to the front doors and peered out. The rain had stopped, though the gutters still dripped; but, more importantly, there were no Repsegs. A couple of women lounged on the street-corner, but surely they couldn’t be spying on her. Could they?

  Clara told herself to calm down as she hurried back down Walton Street, dodging the puddles and trying to avoid the waves made by passing carts that ploughed through the deep water. There must be lots of people in the world called Carrow, she told herself, and quite a few of them must have the initial M. Surely it was nothing to worry about.

  But to be on the safe side, Clara decided she’d better not hang about. She’d just give herself an hour in the library, then go. But where to? Maybe she could find somewhere on the edge of town, and stay there for the night. Then tomorrow – what?

  As she picked her way back towards the library she heard a babble of voices; emerging into Giles Street, she found the cause. Along the edges of the wide, ancient boulevard were a couple of hundred soldiers, standing, leaning against walls or trees, chatting together in groups. Some were smoking, a few were throwing a ball to each other. Clara stared. For Geemo monsters, they were behaving just like ordinary Clones. Weren’t they?

  They were clogging up the pavement, and Clara had to navigate between them, keeping to herself as usual. But her curiosity was growing. When she smiled at one woman, her smile was returned, and she felt the words coming out before she knew it: ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  The soldier pulled out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Waiting to move out,’ she said. ‘Take on the so-called King of Birmingham and his men.’ She spat on the pavement. ‘Don’t you worry, Ma’am. We’ve got artillery now. They’ll get no closer.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘No closer.’

  ‘No closer,’ said a third, and then a fourth. They laughed, and Clara saw the same twinkle in every eye.

  ‘Who’s going to be first, d’you reckon?’ said the first woman.

  ‘I will,’ said one. ‘I’m going straight in. I bet I’ll take out nine or ten of ’em before I go.’

  ‘They’ve got machine guns,’ said another. ‘Need to dodge them bullets if you’re going to do that.’

  ‘I don’t care. Even if I do take a few bullets, it’s only men we’re dealing with, right? So I can strangle a few before I bleed to death.’

  ‘You won’t die first,’ said the first woman. ‘It’ll be Marion – she’s too tall!’

  As Clara walked off, she heard them laughing. But she’d noticed something else: as the soldier lit her cigarette, Clara had seen a tattoo on her wrist. A star and an “I”. Geemo. Infantry.

  At the Bodleian, Clara’s papers were double-checked before the Repsegs let her in. More firewood had been stacked in the courtyard, and crates of tinned vegetables lay just inside the main doorway. From the basement came the sound of hammering.

  The receptionist sounded as if she’d had a hard morning already. ‘Oh!’ she said, trying to smile. ‘It’s, er, Harriet. How are you?’ She looked over Clara’s shoulder. ‘In you go.’

  ‘Are you worried?’ said Clara. ‘Do you really think the Millanders will come? I saw some soldiers just now. They were getting ready to move out.’

  ‘Worried? Why would I be? I’m sure – well, we’ve made all the preparations, haven’t we? Do you want to go on through?’

  Clara sighed. ‘Have you got anything on the history of Aquaster?’ she asked. ‘Anything in the archives? Old papers?’

  The receptionist chewed a pencil as she ran a finger down the index. ‘Upstairs,’ she said. ‘Third left. Stack 218.’

  As she climbed the stairs, Clara swatted away a couple of flies: the day was already getting warm. She wondered whether the library would get an awful lot hotter before long.

  Navigating between the stacks, she lingered at the head of another staircase, where a welcome breeze fluttered up from below. Then, ahead of her, she came upon Stack 218, its inked label faded to grey. The middle shelf was labelled “Aquaster,” but it was almost empty. All that remained were some dishevelled notebooks and a few dusty volumes with faded spines. Someone had been here before her.

  She leant against the shelves, leafing first through the notebooks. They were greasy and well-thumbed, full of careful handwritten observations and formulae; but she didn’t understand any of them and an hour’s work brought her no reward. Frustrated, she threw them back on the shelf. From below came the whinny of horses and the creak of wheels as more deliveries arrived. She looked up. The sun was beginning to glare through the windows; the day was getting on. She couldn’t stay here for ever. Maybe she should leave now. Five more minutes, she decided. That was all.

  She flicked open one of the beige-backed volumes, making dust fly in her face and releasing a flat, desiccated woodlouse that fell to the floor. The book seemed to contain Council papers from thirty years ago: hand-written proceedings of a government committee. Her heart sank. Thirty years ago! Long before she was born, even before the Cloning Acts were passed. There’d be nothing in here about Aquaster, surely? She turned the pages: mundane business, about funding for cloning laboratories; members complaining that their constituencies were paying too much towards the war; parties arguing about the dwindling energy supplies; one member wanting refunds for women whose cloning had failed.

  And then she spotted a familiar word. She took the volume over to the window, the better to read it. Aquaster! So people were already talking about it, thirty years ago.

  Chair: Regarding last week’s policy decision on Aquaster, Council have supported our proposals, except that no announcement must be made to the public.

  Member for Bexhill: Did Council say why?

  Chair: Council have reminded us that the Republic is at war, not just with our neighbours, but with men. We must, at all costs, preserve this, the first Women’s Republic. There will be time for announcements later. Any questions you receive should be answered by emphasising Aquaster’s life-giving properties.

  Member for North London: We thank Council for this direction. But what life-giving properties should we say?

  Chair: Stress that it promotes purity.

  The Chair also invited members to express their sympathy to the daughters of the Member for Slough, following her sudden and tragic death.

  The meeting closed.

  Hungrily, Clara pulled another volume off the shelf. If they were in sequence, this one should tell her about the previous meetings. And, sure enough, near the back she found some minutes from just one week earlier. There was a lengthy section about “hormone inhibitors”. These were, it seemed, already being used in some places. The chairwoman proposed that their use should be officially extended. The Member for North Kent argued for the proposal, the memb
er for Watford saw some difficulties. The Member for East Sussex complained that her Repsegs were constantly having to suppress male brothels, and said there had been riots over the summer.

  Chair: Can I say to you all – we should not only see problems in this. There is an opportunity, too. Here is a chance to make sure women lose interest in men. With this, and with cloning, we can render men completely unnecessary. Women will neither want men, nor need them. Take this opportunity with both hands, and within a generation there will be no need for men at all. We can drive every last one from the Republic.

  Member for Slough: This is wrong. We cannot manipulate people without their consent. It is morally repugnant.

  Chair: This is not the first time that the Member for Slough has indicated her lack of support for the Republic. I begin to find it disturbing.

  Here the proceedings broke off. Presentation, they read, by special advisor. Then:

  Chair: You have heard what Ms Kapoor has had to say. Aquaster is a much improved product, and is highly effective. Only very small concentrations are needed, and it is easy to produce. There are plenty of entry points in the supply – reservoirs, main sumps and so on. And Waterco’s rates are, I think, very reasonable.

  Member for North Kent: How long do we need to go on paying for the stuff?

  Ms Kapoor: At the moment, continued exposure is necessary to suppress aggressive tendencies and keep the subjects docile. As the Chair has said, there is a further effect in slowing sexual development and reducing desire. We are working on improvements that will make the effects permanent; however, at present there are problems with toxicity.