Medical Journal Suguran Foundation—
“One more appearance this week,” Hala said.
Twice this week, she’d hibernated inside the regeneration egg. Twice, she’d given Bayninan a lie.
“It’s what I always do before and after an appearance,” she’d said.
She didn’t know if Bayninan believed her, but she saw the sadness in her friend’s eyes.
“Where are we going?” Bayninan asked.
“You don’t have to go,” Hala said.
Bayninan’s lips formed a grim line.
“Didn’t I make myself clear already?” Bayninan said.
Hala avoided Bayninan’s eyes.
“I’m not a child,” she said. “Not an invalid. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Foolish,” Bayninan said. “Who told you that I look at you as a child or an invalid?”
Hala turned away from Bayninan.
“Do what you want,” she said.
Her vision blurred and she caught herself before she stumbled. Behind her, she heard Bayninan mutter a curse. Then Bayninan’s arms were around her, steadying her and helping her over the threshold.
“Why won’t you share with me?” Bayninan said. “Whatever it is, you’re not alone anymore.”
For a moment, she was tempted to tell Bayninan. How easy it would be to let this warrior be her strength. She flinched and pulled away from Bayninan’s hands.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just a temporary glitch. Nothing that can’t be resolved.”
She faced herself in the mirror, willing herself to be calm. For tonight, she’d chosen to put on the clothing she’d received on the day of her birth. The skirt had been woven by one of the foremothers – the patterns more intricate than the patterns on the skirt she normally wore to such gatherings. There were no enhancements in the cloth, but it wasn’t as if she needed enhancements in her clothing when her entire body hummed and bristled with the arrays installed by the Once-rule.
She brushed her hand over the horsehair that encircled her waist. She could feel the patterns woven into it – subtle figures embossed with skill in the same dark color as the band. Ivory buttons yellowed by age ran along the length of the belt and dangled down to where the edges of her skirt met and folded over each other.
It was the mark of her class. Out of deference to the Compassionate, she’d donned a vest, but over that, she wore a heavy necklace of bamboo beads and precious bloodstone. She had never worn it before and perhaps it was a sign of her augmentation’s breakdown because when she’d picked up the necklace, it had burned. An image came into her mind, very sharp and very clear, of her mother wearing the same necklace, her eyes closed and her lips moving as if in prayer. Then it faded away. The feeling was like touching the edge of a memory that belonged with the piece. There was a message waiting there, she thought.
“The pod is here.” Bayninan’s voice broke into her thoughts.
She unclenched her hands and pulled herself away from the haze that beckoned.
“I’m ready,” she said.
She met Bayninan’s gaze. Was it only a few days ago that she’d been filled with such joy at their reunion? Why couldn’t she dredge up even the slightest bit of that emotion now?
“I suppose you don’t want me to be your warrior tonight,” Bayninan said.
There was regret in Bayninan’s smile.
Hala shook her head, her fingers reaching up to touch the deep red of the blood stones.
“Not tonight,” she said.
Ay-wan’s words haunted her while she shook hands and greeted political dignitaries from Silhouette’s neighbor worlds. There were the ambassadors, clustered together in a circle, their wives dressed in sparkly costumes made up of tiny particles drenched in silver shine or platinum flair.
“This suffering I undertake,” Ay-wan’s words ghosted around her, overlaid with sorrow. As if the man who had spoken them wanted to say that given a choice, given descendants, he would have chosen something else.
She smiled and shook hands with the Consul from the Once-place named Siargao. An independent island, Siargao had been given the ultimatum to ally themselves with the Empire or risk destruction. There were tales of a hidden power in Siargao, but they had put up no struggle and signed the treaty.
“Ah,” the Consul said. “So, you are the much spoken of Artifact. One of those rescued from the Chaos that plagued the Once-country, so the Compassionate attaché says. You will honor us with a dance perhaps. Maybe a telling or a showing of what it was like in your country before the Chaos took it?”
Hala smiled and murmured something noncommittal. It would not be good to offend one of the Empire’s political allies. How she acted here would influence whatever privileges the Once-tribe had wrestled from the Compassionate.
“Never let it be said that we are not kind.” Hala turned at the sound of the Compassionate attaché’s voice.
The smile on his face was hard as glass. All his teeth showed, chills shot down her spine.
“Artifact Hala,” the attaché said. “You’ve laid a good basis for our work here.”
She couldn’t bring herself to make a civil reply. She tried to speak polite words.
“You will give us a good performance tonight, won’t you?” the attaché continued.
She opened her mouth, her mind flailing about for words.
“I—” she said.
“Yes?” There was a curious look on the attaché’s face.
“I do this for the Once-tribe,” she said. “In memory of the Munhawe and the Mama-oh who are lost to us.”
In memory …
The words wrapped themselves around her like an embrace. The air around her seemed to coagulate into a hazy curtain through which she could see colors and hear snatches of words, music, and laughter.
And then, the gongs were pounding in her ears …
“Artifact,” a voice pierced through the haze and she blinked and looked up into the face of the blue-haired representative from a place whose name she couldn’t remember.
What he thought when she simply looked at him, she didn’t know. Perhaps he thought she had gone into a trance induced by her boosters. She felt his hand at her elbow, knew he was moving her to where she was more visible.
On display again.
She shook her head at the whisper and tried to focus. Who had said those words? Vicious anger rose up inside her. If this was the Once-country, if this were the Once-tribe, she would demand satisfaction.
Artifact. Relic of a dead tribe.
Her head was pounding again and images superimposed themselves on the present. She could hear the gongs, she could smell the wood smoke. Was this what happened when one passed through the veils and communed with the spirits?
She lifted her eyes and looked at the expectant faces. Of course, she thought. To see the Artifact, to hear her speak, it was a thing to be spoken of among friends, wasn’t it?
Those patterns are so unique. And her voice, and the chants – of course they all have their own charm. What a unique experience.
She closed her eyes and thought of the warm dear faces of her clansisters and her clanbrothers. The gongs were beating and the warriors were dancing down the path of the mountainside. They had come in from the kill, and they bore the heads of the invaders.
Look, sister, they said. We have hunted well, this eve. See this head? How fragrant the locks of his hair are, and how shining and long. But he will look glorious standing guard at the doorposts of my home. Don’t you think so, sister?
The warrior grinned and passed before her, and the others passed as well, like waves washing over her, dancing down the mountainside bearing sheaves of rice from the harvest. Their feet sure on the steep slopes, the gongs beat a wild rhythm that made her want to dance and chant out loud of victory and challenge and the hunger to be free.
“Enough!” The roar tore apart her vision.
Around her, the veils shimmered and fell apart. The Compassionate at
taché stood before her, his blue eyes blazing with fury, his body quivering.
“You show us an outrage,” he said.
As if from a very great distance, she heard her reply.
“I show what the spirits say I must show. I speak in remembrance of what has gone before.”
Her vision blurred. The room whirled around her and before the darkness took her, she heard Bayninan’s voice calling her name, and thought she saw a valiant warrior leaping over the heads of the gathered entourage to gather her into his arms.
“Hala.”
When she was a child, her mother took her to the caves at Sagada. Time had wreaked its havoc on the caves and the Compassionate had taken what was left of the mummies and the coffins and the bones and sealed them in huge airless capsules that were put on display in various realms where the Empire held sway.
There was very little left to see of what had once been except for holos and vids that played across the cave walls at intermittent intervals. Her mother had taken her deeper into the caves and shining her light on the wall, she’d shown to Hala where generations of the Once-tribe had placed their mark in protest of the taking of what was theirs by right. There alongside her mother, she’d placed her own mark too. She’d dipped her hands in the pale white matter, a gift of the spirits her mother told her, and laid the imprint of her palms on the walls right under her mother’s own.
“By this the spirits will know you,” her mother said.
She came awake with a gasp.
She was in a room with walls the shade of lemons.
“You’re awake,” a voice said.
She turned.
Bayninan sat beside her bed, worry etched on her face.
She blinked and memory came back to her.
“Oh no,” she groaned. “I messed up. The attaché must be furious.”
“It was rather chaotic for a while,” Bayninan said. “And he was very angry, but I said you hadn’t been feeling well and the implants were not doing their job – I told him it might be a virus.”
“And he accepted that?” Hala said.
Bayninan tilted her head to one side and smiled.
“I can be very good at persuading people when I want to,” she said. “In the end, they were all very solicitous. The Consul from Siargao insisted that you be accommodated here.”
Hala stared at Bayninan, wondering if her friend had always been this smooth-talking person with a twinkle in her eye.
“We’re in the newest wing of the Sinuguran Foundation Center,” Bayninan said with a smile.
“Oh no,” Hala cried. “What have you done? We have to get out of here.”
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“No,” Bayninan said. “You need to rest. Lie down. All will be well, Hala. You’ll see.”
She stared up at this strange Bayninan who exuded more authority than she’d ever had before.
“What do you mean, all will be well?” she asked. “Do you know what the Suguran Foundation does, Bayninan? Do you understand what they are?”
Of course, Bayninan couldn’t know or understand, Hala realized. How could Bayninan know that it was the Foundation that was at the heart of the implants and the boosters? If the Foundation realized that her augmentations were failing, they would take them away without asking. She would lose everything – the archive of memory, the names of the clans, the faces, the songs, the dances, even the memory of warm earth, the taste of steamed rice, and the scent of betelnut.
“Your augmentations are failing, Hala,” Bayninan said. “I know the signs. They’re like poison to you now, and if you don’t get rid of them, you’ll be dead before year’s end.”
“I can’t,” Hala said.
“It’s no longer impossible,” Bayninan replied. “There have been advancements and the other augmented have been restored to their own selves without harm.”
“I can’t,” Hala insisted. “Without these, I’m nothing, Bayninan. I won’t be able to access the veils, I won’t be able to perform. I’ll be nothing.”
“You’ll never be nothing,” Bayninan said. “You’ll always be Hala to me – always as you were meant to be.”
“You don’t understand,” Hala cried out.
“I do,” Bayninan replied. “But you don’t need to be afraid. There’s no risk to your life.”
“But there is,” Hala shouted. “You’re not an Artifact. You don’t get to say what it is that I will lose or that I will gain. You’re not the one people turn to when they need to remember the long line of history. You’re not the one people come to when they want access to the wealth of our culture, our chants and our songs and our dances. You don’t understand at all.”
“And for whom do you keep those histories, Hala?” Bayninan asked. “For whom do you recite the poems and chants? For whom do you dance and for whom do you speak? You say you do these things in memory of the Munhawe and the Mama-oh. But the Munhawe and the Mama-oh served the Once-tribe, Hala. I do not see any of the Once-tribe among your audience. For what purpose do you risk your life, Hala? Is it for the Once-tribe or is it for yourself?”
Bayninan’s words fell like a scourge on Hala’s shoulders. She stiffened in indignation – was this how her friend saw her? Was it how people looked at her? Was she nothing more than an old woman who put her heritage on display?
“Get out,” she said. “Get out of my sight, Bayinan. Get out before I forget that I love you and that you are my friend.”
Let us be clear on this. There was no invasion. With the signing of the treaty, the Once-country was brought into the folds of the Empire. It was an acknowledgment of the Compassionate’s sovereignty and the god-given right to lead those who were left behind into the light of the Compassionate’s greater wisdom.
—from History of the Empire and the Once-Country—
Bayninan’s departure left Hala with the luxury of solitude and time to think. It was very late in the evening – that much she knew. Silhouette’s moon hovered in the night sky and the chimes sang out the eleventh hour. Not so long ago, she had been standing before delegates from the allies of the Compassionate Empire. They had admired her, of that she was certain, they had listened to her. Perhaps her words had confused some of them, perhaps some of them had been titillated, perhaps some of them had been amused, and the Compassionate attaché had most certainly been moved to anger.
She recalled fragments of what she had spoken and she wondered how she could have found the voice to sing the warrior’s chant and the temerity to speak of the first invasion and the defeat of the Compassionate at the hands of the Once-tribe.
There was silence in her head now. None of the humming that accompanied her even when she was alone, none of the buzzing awareness that prickled at her skin even when in solitude. It was a strange feeling because no matter what, she’d always had the awareness of data streaming through her from the implants in her head.
Bayninan had spoken of some drug being applied to her system and she supposed it was that which quieted the data and made her feel suddenly so alone.
As she contemplated the darkness, she wondered if this was what it would be like if she consented to have her augmentations removed. She would no longer be the Artifact, as Bayninan had said. But was it really that important to be the Artifact? To recite auguries and poetry, to dance the dances and to explain symbols that held no significance to those who viewed her only as a novel thing, to be whispered of by people who had no understanding of the rhythm of harvest and planting or the variations of the gong?
She closed her eyes in weariness. Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids and spilled down her cheeks as she acknowledged Bayninan’s words.
Alone with her thoughts, Hala acknowledged their truth. She’d clung to her role as Artifact, refusing to question it, but if she allowed herself to continue on as the Artifact, she would be betraying the blood that flowed in her veins.
“It’s not deadly,” Ay-wan said. “But it is still a procedure t
hat carries risk.”
Ay-wan had come to her on the second day of her confinement and she had given him permission to relay her corrupted state to the representative.
Now, he was talking her through the procedure that would change her life for ever.
“You mentioned no risk when we spoke of this in my home,” Hala said. “And Bayninan said that removals had been successfully carried out on others who had been augmented.”
A sliver of pain went through her. Bayninan had not been to see her since she’d sent her friend away. Instead, an emissary had come with the message that Bayninan was preparing for a return to the Once-country.
I will wait for word from you, Bayninan had written. My promise still stands. If you send for me, I will come.
What was Bayninan thinking? The Once-country was still in the grip of Chaos. Who would be there to greet them if they chose to return to the place of the Once-tribe? And why send a message when she could easily have come herself?
“You have lived with the augmentations for so long, lady,” Ay-wan said. “Did you stop to consider that you were born of the blood? With the augmentations, you did not have to think of the consequences of your heritage. The machines suppressed what came naturally and the visions you brought forth for the public were what the Compassionate desired of the program.”
Hala frowned.
“What do you mean by that?”
Ay-wan shrugged. Something flickered in his eyes. It was lonely and sad, and for a moment Hala wished she had made the effort to know more about him instead of sealing herself away from any intimate connections.
“There is this possibility that you could come into the role you were meant to fill,” Ay-wan said after a pause. “It is also possible that you will never be anything more now than what you were before the augmentations.”
Hala bowed her head and stared at her hands. She thought of the exhilaration brought on by the dance. The moments of joy and the way she had lived towards those moments. Outside of the performances, she had simply been going through the motions – moving from one performance to the next like a doll or a machine waiting for its master to utter the word of command.
The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women Page 32