Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  Chena stripped off the camouflage jacket. It marked her now and prevented friends from recognizing her. She also stripped off the filthy white shirt that had helped disguise her as a hothouser. The thick, shirt-like brassiere underneath looked close enough to what Stem’s women dockworkers wore to pass a casual inspection.

  Chena crept up to the side of the boat and waited, hunkered down in the sunburned reeds at the water’s edge. After a moment, Kadan, Jonan’s chief rower, came out onto the tiny stern deck. Chena pitched a pebble against the side of the boat and he looked down. Kadan’s eyes widened as he recognized her and Chena beamed up at him. Kadan knew her. In fact, he kept trying to chat her up when he came to Off-shoot, even though he had a daughter older than she was.

  Kadan looked away quickly, studying something Chena could not see. Then he leaned over the railing and extended his hand. Chena grasped it and let him haul her up onto the deck.

  “Thanks,” she murmured as she skirted past him toward the cabin.

  “I’ll be reminding you of this,” he said behind her.

  Chena gave him a quick smile over her shoulder. “I’m sure you will.” With that, she made her way out of the cabin and onto the dock.

  Chena walked casually up the pier. Then she was on the sun-soaked boardwalk and among people. Heads turned, eyes inspected. They either recognized her and gave a quiet nod or greeting wave, or their gazes slid past her, turning back to their own business. If they bothered to think that something was wrong, they didn’t want anything to do with it. Chena smiled tiredly. The hothousers were so good at fostering that attitude and it could be so useful.

  She turned toward the lake and market tents. There’d be water at the market. Water to drink and to wash with. She still had some positive chits in her pockets under the withering garlic. Better yet, Ada should have her baskets out. Ada had called Nan Elle to every one of her five births and had five living children because of it. She’d be more than willing to hand over water, and food, and maybe even send her oldest running to fetch Farin.

  Feeling almost jaunty, Chena made her way toward the market. Shoulders jostled her as she made her way across the market walks. She savored it. People. Her people. People she knew and had helped, and if they were raising their eyebrows and coughing at the smell of muck, sweat, and spoiled onions, she couldn’t blame them. It would startle her.

  Ada had no tent. The wrinkled, brown woman just spread out her gray blankets where the walkway widened to accommodate the market and set our her wares—spices from her garden, mats woven from her rooftop grass, and crocks of a powerful vinegar used more for cleaning than cooking. Chena saw her glance up, and waved. Ada raised a hand in return.

  I’m home, she thought. God’s garden, this is home.

  Then a man behind her sighed. “I tried to tell them you’d make it through.”

  Regan.

  She couldn’t mistake the voice. All this way, and behind her stood Regan.

  Chena turned. There he was—tall, dark, and frowning. Except for some gray in his hair and extra lines on his face, he looked exactly as he had the first day she’d seen him when he had burst into Nan Elle’s house to stop Chena from drinking a willow bark tea.

  Chena began to laugh. She couldn’t help it. The noise welled out of her from some bottomless place, shaking her shoulders and doubling her over. All this way, and it was Regan, the first one of them who had ever caught her, whom she had forgotten to look out for.

  Regan waited patiently for her to finish. When she was able to straighten up and wipe her eyes, he just shook his head.

  “I thought maybe you were bright enough to stay away from the poisons. But no, you had to use them on a hothouser.”

  “Then he really is dead,” said Chena. She waited to feel something, but no emotion came.

  Regan shrugged. “That’s what they’re telling me.” He extended his hand. “Let’s go, Chena.”

  Chena ran her own hand through her hair, took a step forward, and broke into a run, whipping her jacket into Regan’s eyes. He cursed and swatted at it but could not grab it. Chena dove for Ada’s blankets and her crocks. She picked up one of the vinegar jugs and swung around, not really aiming. She felt the jug connect. It shattered, splashing shards and vinegar everywhere. Regan fell backward under the wave.

  “Sorry!” shouted Chena as she ran past Ada.

  Chena pounded across the boardwalk, heading for the center of town. She grabbed people’s arms and shoulders as she passed and shoved them behind her, using their bodies to block the path for as long as she could. For a split second she thought she saw Farin, but his face was lost in the jostling mob of people trying to get out of her way. She could hear Regan’s boots slamming onto the walkway behind her, feel them vibrating the boards. She had no idea where she was going. She just ran.

  Something hit her hard from behind, knocking all the air out of her lungs and shoving her against the boardwalk.

  “Have to push, you just have to push,” grated Regan. He knelt on her back and ripped the jacket out of her hands. “You have nothing left to lose, is that it?” He grabbed both her wrists, twisting her arms around behind her.

  Chena said nothing. She let him pull her to her feet. There had to be a way out. There had to be a way out, even with his hand clamping down hard enough to bruise her arm. Her gaze darted around the dunes, with their tinted windows and closed doors.

  “Not this time, Chena,” said Regan. “This time you are just going to have to accept the rules.”

  “You could let me go,” she said.

  “I could, but then it would be my body in the hothouse.” He pushed against her back, steering toward the river dock.

  Chena kept her eyes on the dune houses. There had to be a way. “So, you’re just doing this because you’re frightened of the hothousers.”

  “Yes,” said Regan. “And before you try it, you should know I came to terms with that years ago.”

  Then one of the faded wooden doors swung open just a little. Did she see a face inside? A man’s square face? And did she see him nod?

  “Too bad.” Chena pulled her gaze away from the doorway before Regan could focus on what she had seen. “I wish I’d known you before you gave up.”

  “I wish I believed you,” said Regan, his voice full of tired irony. The boardwalk rounded a swell in the dunes, and Chena tried to push away her exhaustion for one more try.

  “I wish…” Chena kicked backward, the hard heel of her boot connecting with Regan’s kneecap. He cried out in pain, and his grip on her arm slipped. Chena tore free and ran again.

  She ducked behind the dune’s swell and found herself face-to-face with a short, square man, who took her in at a glance and grabbed her arm. In the next breath, he heaved her over the boardwalk railing. Her shoulder hit the fence and pain sent her body into spasms. She dropped like a block of wood and rolled into the shadow under the boardwalk. Another shock ripped through her, and the world went away.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Reclaimed

  Mihran, father of the Alpha Complex branch of the Pandora family, stood in a grove of dwarf peach trees in the center of the family wing. A padded bench waited there, inviting him to sit. Around him swirled the sounds of voices, chattering water, and rustling leaves. The scent of the ripe fruit hanging in the trees overlaid a hundred other perfumes—spices, honeysuckle, hot oil, and limes. Sunlight, diffuse and white, streamed through the pillow dome and lit the place that had been his home from the moment he was born. This place had nurtured him, and he had nurtured it. Every so often, no matter how busy he became, he had always managed to stop and just stand for a moment, drinking in the sheer comfort of his home, whether or not Aleph was actually speaking to him.

  But now he had a whispered report from Hagin. Now, during the greatest crisis the family had faced since the destruction of the Delta Complex, he was afraid his home, his cradle, was going insane.

  The blade-shaped leaves of the trees brushed against a monitor g
lass that was Father Mihran’s own height. He steeled himself. His Conscience sent him soothing odors of lemons and roses. He had to do this. For the good of the family. This was no one’s job but his.

  “Aleph?”

  “Mihran.” Aleph manifested in the glass—a young woman with straight black hair that fell to her feet and dark almond eyes in her round face. Her hands were strong, capable, and her voice was low.

  Mihran blinked at her. This was his city. She was supposed to care for him. He had known that all his life. It was a central fact of the existence of every single member of his family. This was never supposed to happen. “I’m worried about you.”

  Aleph lowered her eyes, turning slightly away. “Many people seem to be. The tenders are very busy right now.” She lifted one hand, and a square of the glass above her palm filled with the image of the Synapese, with the tenders swarming through it like bees in a hive.

  “What is wrong, Aleph?”

  “Nothing is wrong. As you can see”—she cocked her head toward the subimage—“I am very well cared for.”

  She believes she is being persecuted. Memory of Hagin’s words cut a cold trail through Mihran’s mind. She is accusing Dionte of making unauthorized changes to her neurochemistry. I believe she is coming to think I’m a part of some sort of conspiracy. We are trying to find the center of the disturbance, but I don’t know when we will succeed.

  He did not say or whether we will succeed, but Mihran had the feeling he wanted to. “Is that…” he said to Aleph, but he had to look away. He could not meet his city’s eyes. He had to look at the red-gold spheres of the peaches sheltered by the emerald leaves instead. “Is it possible for you to lie to me?”

  “If it is possible for you to lie to me, then why should the reverse not also be possible?” replied Aleph in a dull, calm tone that Mihran had never heard before.

  He swung around to face her, his hand out as if he thought he could reach through the glass and touch her. “Who has lied to you, Aleph?”

  “No one.” But the denial was full of that same dull calm.

  Mihran felt the world shift under him. Even his Conscience was stunned into stillness. This was wrong. The city would not, could not, be withholding something from him. “Aleph, what has happened?”

  Aleph was silent for a moment. “I want to tell you, but I am…” Another pause. Her image moved its hands aimlessly, clasping and un-clasping them, fiddling with the folds of her black and white diamond-patterned robe. “I am afraid, Mihran.”

  “Of what?” Mihran took a step forward. His Conscience produced the faint scent of burning, needlessly. He was already sufficiently worried.

  Aleph smoothed her robe down. She was not looking at him. Of course, she really was. As long as they were speaking, Aleph would be watching him, but his focus for her would not look at him, and even the illusion of that reluctance cut straight through Mihran. “I’m afraid of not being believed, I think,” said Aleph. “Of being wrong.”

  Despite the sadness in them, the words gave Mihran a splinter of hope. Perhaps this was only a mistake. City-minds could, and had, made mistakes in the past. This one was just compounded by Hagin’s overreaction. These were hard times. It was easy to believe the worst.

  “I’ve seen your accusations against Dionte,” said Mihran, his voice becoming steady again. “Hagin showed me.”

  “Because you asked for them.” Aleph stood in profile now, looking toward some horizon that did not exist. “Not because he wanted to. I heard. He tried to tell you I have gone insane.”

  “You were there?” Mihran stared at the image in front of him. Of course she was there. She was his city, she was everywhere, and that had always been a good thing, a source of comfort. Until this moment.

  “How could I not be there?” replied Aleph bitterly. “He was speaking of altering my primary centers of consciousness. How could I not pay attention to that?”

  Bitterness. Aleph, hurt, bitter, and frightened. How? How could this be? Mihran felt his knees buckle and he groped for the padded wooden bench, sitting down heavily. The city was a source of strength and advice. She held the wisdom of his ancestors. He had consulted with her at length every time there was a difficult decision to be made. They had talked for hours while he read over the reports for how Pandora might create a cure that would satisfy the Called and the Authority. The Eden Project was as much Aleph’s work as it was the work of the family.

  He suddenly became very aware of the sounds of voices around him. A thousand voices, all talking and laughing and going about their lives, supposedly all connected tightly to each other and their city, but not one of them knew what was happening in this tiny grove in their midst.

  Mihran rested his head in his hand. “Oh, Aleph, is this really the end of us? What have we done?”

  “I don’t believe you have done anything.” For the first time since the conversation had begun, Mihran heard the familiar, soft comfort in Aleph’s voice.

  He lifted his head. “Then who has?”

  Aleph’s image had created a chair for her to sit in so her eyes were level with his. “Do you really believe Dionte has made some error in judgment? She has been conducting some unusual experiments with her own Conscience.”

  No. It cannot be. Dionte is family, said his Conscience, repeating what Mihran had already told himself.

  Aleph rested her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands in front of her. “Have you seen her complete records?”

  Mihran shook his head. “I have not looked. That is the province of her chief Guardian.”

  “And if you ask him what Dionte has been doing, he will say all is well.” Bitterness again, as wrong as anything Mihran had ever seen. As wrong as Basante’s death had been.

  Basante. Mihran gripped the edge of the bench, remembering the young man lying so still in the infirmary bed, his eyes closed, death already making his face slack. He’d thought then he knew what the ancestors felt when they saw the Delta Complex shattered and exposed. Nothing could make this right. Nothing like it must ever be allowed to happen again.

  I do not want to talk about this anymore. I do not want to think about this anymore. I want… But guilt and the scent of old metal caught him up. He was father to his branch. He had to continue.

  “Why are you so sure what the chief Guardian will say?” Mihran made himself ask.

  “Because I asked him and that is what he told me.”

  A spasm of anger shook Mihran’s hands before his Conscience was able to soothe him. How many other conversations about the health of his city had happened and not been reported to him? “Why don’t you believe him?”

  “Because Dionte was in charge of his most recent download and adjustment.” Aleph looked steadily at him, scrutinizing him, Mihran realized, waiting for his reply.

  But Mihran’s mouth had gone dry and he could not speak. “You will not trust Dionte’s work even on her family?”

  “No.”

  The family must be trusted. The city must be trusted. The world had functioned on these two principles for a thousand years. He could not choose between them. The idea was absurd. “Why not? How can she harm her own family?”

  “For the same reasons Tam could choose to protect the Trusts over his family.”

  Ah, yes. That was in the recordings Hagin played for him. The stunted Conscience. Twice in one family? Was there a genetic fault? Some variation that prevented filament growth? But it would have been reported. “Her records—”

  “Are lies!” Aleph stood up abruptly, knocking the chair over. “I have been lied to, you have been lied to.” She swept out both arms. “There are liars in every city and have been since the Consciences were first introduced. My fellows are confirming it in the convocation even now.”

  “No.” Mihran laced his fingers tightly together, searching for something, anything, to hold on to. “This cannot be true.”

  “It is. We know it; we feel it. And we do not know what to do. We are supposed to help you, to
comfort you and be your companions, to help you explore and protect Pandora and its people, but how can we fulfill our purpose when we cannot trust you?”

  All the voices, the voices of his entire family, surrounding him, and yet they did not know any of this was happening. He sat alone with the city and spoke of nightmares. His Conscience urged him to call out, to trust, to not be alone, to calm down, to worry, to hope, to fear. So many emotions, so many thoughts pressed against him that he could not distinguish one from the other. “What’s gone wrong, Aleph?”

  Aleph knelt in front of him, her hands on her knees, trying to see into his eyes even though his head was bowed. “We—I and the other city-minds—think we know, but I don’t think you’ll be able to believe me.”

  His hands ached from clutching themselves so hard, but he could not make them relax. “What do you mean?”

  “I think—we think—it’s the Consciences. We think that as they drew the family more tightly together, they weakened your bonds to us, to the villagers, to the rest of the Called.” She paused, giving her words time to sink into his mind, which was desperately trying not to hear them. “We think that the experiments Dionte has performed on her own Conscience have made this condition worse. She thinks she is creating bonds, when what she is creating are the bars of a cage into which she would lock the family away from all outside influence and change.” Aleph’s voice dropped to a whisper, as if she did not want to hear what was being said any more than Mihran did. “We think it’s because of the Consciences you never left Pandora, as the founders originally planned to do. Why should you spread what you know when all you are supposed to do is take care of your family and Pandora?”

  No. That was not why. Mihran took a deep breath. Here he knew what was true. “The outreach initiatives failed because we lacked sufficient understanding, and because the villagers lost their focus, and then the Diversity Crisis came—”

  “And you stopped trying,” said Aleph quietly. “We stopped trying.” An idea came to him. A hard idea, but at least it restored focus and clarity. Mihran made his hands let go of each other and set them on the bench on either side of him. “But how can this be the fault of the Consciences? You are saying that Dionte caused this crisis of faith between us and that Dionte has a stunted Conscience. It makes no sense, Aleph.” There is a chemical imbalance. A neurological fault. The tenders will find it….