Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  'Would you mind being a strand?' one of the empath women asked Milena. Milena didn't understand.

  The woman's face was suddenly crossed with concern. 'Don't worry, love, we're just asking if you want to be part of the tapestry. We all like you.' The woman looked at one particular man. 'You have to tell them or else they don't know,' she said. She looked back at Milena with pity. 'Do you, love?'

  'Salt and wool,' said another dancer. She also was smiling. She wore a Postperson's headscarf. There was a murmur of assent from the other empaths.

  Al the Snide thumped down the slope of the floor, in black boots, smartly pulling on gloves. He looked at Milena with expectation. Then he smiled and closed his eyes for a moment, as if embarrassed.

  'Sorry,' he suddenly said. 'I keep forgetting you can't hear me. Do you mind going for a walk? We can talk then.' His pale, pale face was even leaner, but the eyes were less faraway, less self-concerned than they once had been.

  Outside, the air seemed to have daggers of ice in it. In bare branches a community of crows had gathered, cawing and croaking to each other in smoky mist. Al helped Milena down the gypsy steps.

  'The problem is to get him alone,' he said.

  'Sorry?' Milena was completely taken aback.

  'Max. I will need to be alone with him.'

  'You already know what the problem is?'

  He nodded, and kept speaking.

  'So going to a concert or something is out. Too much mind noise. It would be best just to visit him. And tell him what you are doing. Why you think it's best to try and trick him, I don't know.'

  'I'm sorry, I'm not used to this,' said Milena.

  'I know,' he said darkly.

  You want this over with quickly, she realised.

  'I suppose I do, yes,' he said aloud, and looked back up at her, his lips drawn thin.

  And Milena found herself thinking: I wonder what he feels about Heather? She thought it, and he looked away.

  'I treated you badly once. So I feel I owe you something,' he said. 'I won't charge you for this.'

  'Thank you,' murmured Milena. But she thought: I never mentioned money; it never even crossed my mind.

  He was trying to keep things businesslike. 'We need to tell Max openly what we are doing. Our approach is that I'm simply helping him to remember. Arrange an appointment to meet. It's always easier if people co-operate.'

  It still rankled Milena that he had mentioned money. 'You don't owe me anything,' she said.

  He punched the palm of his gloved hand. 'I wish you people could hear!' he exclaimed. It was so indelicate, having to speak.

  'Look. You are Heather. At least half of Heather was you. Maybe most of her.'

  He still loves her, thought Milena. Oh, poor man.

  He sighed, and ran a hand over the top of his head. 'She's buried deep now, isn't she?'

  He looked at the top of Milena's head, as if to see Heather there.

  'You already know that,' said Milena. 'Why ask?'

  Al shrugged. 'You don't hate me any more. That's something.'

  'I did something far worse to Rolfa in the end. Far worse than anything you did.'

  'Ssssh,' he said, and held up his hands. 'I know. I know.' And there was more than pity in his eyes. There was comprehension. 'The bastards with their bloody Readings,' he said. 'It's all about control. They don't care what they kill in the process. I'm sorry.'

  And Milena knew there was no answering comprehension in her. 'Tell me,' she said. 'I'm afraid you'll have to tell me. How have you been? What you've been doing?'

  He looked suddenly, coltishly pleased that she wanted to know. He made an awkward, embracing gesture back towards his boite. 'I make my tapestries. As I told you before. I make patterns out of all the people I see. The personalities are like colours. I make them and hang them in the air for the other Snides. There's enough of us now. We work in ordinary jobs. Don't let on, most of the time. So I make them tapestries and they buy them.'

  'Take them home and hang them on the wall?'

  'They remember them,' he said, correcting her, shyly. More viral memory.

  'But you hate viruses.'

  'I hate their viruses. I love the ones people make for themselves.' He looked at her face, searching it. 'If only you could read,' he said. 'You'd know all that.'

  They walked on. 'Until you're Snide, it's hard to believe how complex people are. Like a whole universe. There's all this chattering going on in their heads. Mist we call it, like the inside of clouds. It fogs everything, stops people seeing. Most people function by shutting almost everything out. Below that, there's the Web. That's the memory. That's where everything is stored, and the Web is a real mess. You can get tangled up in it. A very complex personality is actually difficult to get out of. It can be very scary. Underneath that is the Fire, and that just burns. That's where the heart is.'

  'How tangled am I?' Milena asked.

  'You...' he paused, eyes narrow. 'You're very neat, very tidy. But you're in compartments. There's parts of you that don't communicate with each other. So you surprise yourself all the time. It's an ordered mind. You've got an amazing capacity for detail, you're good at organising. But you could do a lot more than that.' He smiled at her. 'You'd make one hell of a Snide, you could take it all in.'

  He was being kind. He likes me, thought Milena, seeing him smile.

  'Yes,' he said, gently.

  He loves me. I'm still Heather for him.

  He must have heard her, but the smile stayed steady, and the eyes were still full of comprehension.

  'They've paid for their tapestry,' he said. 'I've got to go back and finish it. Then we'll go and meet this Max of yours.'

  As they walked back towards the boite, Milena thought: the clouds have cleared for him. She had never seen a change like that, when someone comes whole.

  'Not entirely,' he said, looking back casually. 'I'm still a criminal. But I don't hurt people any more.' He stopped in front of his door, looking back behind him on the steps. 'The thing about being a Snide is, if you hurt people, you feel the pain too. So you end up hurting yourself.' He smiled again, and pulled the door open, and stepped smartly inside.

  He sat still again, weaving patterns. There was a warm, approving chuckle.

  'There she is,' said the Postwoman. 'There she is, our thread of wool.'

  'Undyed,' said the dim-eyed man. 'The kind that holds the whole thing together.'

  It was dark, night, when they got back to the Zoo. They found Max rehearsing the orchestra for Wozzeck. He saw Al and Milena slip into seats in the theatre, and gave them one of his long, unblinking stares.

  Then he turned, and nodded, and the music began.

  'Hoo boy!' Al exclaimed. 'Oh, poor baby.'

  'What? What can you Read?' Milena asked.

  'Sssh,' said Al.

  The music began. It sidled forwards, uncomfortable, disjointed, angular, expressing alienation. Max conducted, making flowing, muscular gestures. Al's face seemed to freeze, fixed on him, watching him, as if he were a flickering light.

  'He can feel you at his back,' murmured Al, without moving his head.

  Suddenly Max made a messy, hurried wave in the air. No, no, no, said his hands. The orchestra stopped playing by degrees, the music trailing off into disorder, the musicians looking up in wonder. Max turned around. He looked at Milena. 'Do you have to be here now?' he said. His voice was quiet but it still managed somehow to penetrate the curtain of air between them.

  'We're just listening to the music, Max,' said Milena. 'We'd like to talk to you. We'll wait outside for you.'

  'I'm busy this evening, I can't.'

  'When are you free?'

  'Talk to me later!'

  'We can never find you, Max. One week, Max. Remember? Two days of it have gone, Max. We need to find the thing that you lost, Max. This gentleman can help you.' The musicians began to stir in their seats and murmur to each other.

  'Stop,' said Al. 'Stop now. Or you'll kill him.'

&nb
sp; 'We will wait outside,' said Milena, gathering up her coat.

  They walked in silence up the corridor.

  'Whoo!' said Al, expelling air as the doors swung shut behind them.

  'What did you get?' Milena asked.

  Al scowled. The music began again, dimly, behind the doors. 'It's like this. He makes a motion one way.' Al moved his hand like an arrow. 'But then the motion deserts him, and he's left stranded, so he makes another motion this way, in another direction, and that stops because he then remembers he meant to go the other way. There's no centre to give him any weight.'

  The music wheedled through the door, sad, aching, the music of ghosts.

  'He's weightless,' said Al. 'There's no up or down for him. He's totally lost. Like some poor, huge, overgrown child. He's been unable to move anywhere since childhood. He was stunned in childhood.'

  The music stopped again. They could dimly hear Max talking.

  'That's why he likes music. It's all pre-written, it's all rehearsed. It all flows in one direction for him. It's the only time he gets any flow. Most of us go swimming through time, with the current like a fish. He just gets lost in it. Except when there's music. As long as the music doesn't surprise him. So.' Al looked up at Milena with an odd smile. 'He hates new music'

  The problem again was time. The music started up again.

  Al was still looking at Milena with an odd smile. 'He hates you. He hates the Comedy. He can't bear either of you. You make him feel so small.'

  After the rehearsal, Max saw them outside in the corridor. The angular violinist was with him and she was pale with fury.

  'How could you do that to me!' Max said, fists clenched and pale, mouth stretched and desperate.

  'Who are you?' the violinist demanded, glaring at Milena. 'Who are you to interrupt a rehearsal like that? This is a very talented musician, and you're making him very unhappy.'

  'He's made me very unhappy,' said Milena. 'He's lost the entire score of an opera. The only copy.'

  'Don't!' he said, his pink fists bobbing up and down. He shuffled, knees bent, in the posture of weightlessness.

  'He's lost it,' said Milena, 'because it makes him realise that he could never write it himself.'

  'Milena,' warned the Snide.

  The woman smiled bitterly. 'A new opera,' she said. 'God. We get one of those a month. No one can write opera any more. They're all written by ambitious stumblebums like you, who have no more appreciation than...' the woman broke off. 'Oooh! You should be grateful that someone like Max even looked at it.'

  'We don't want to hurt him,' said the Snide. 'Not at all. We would just like a few moments alone with him.' Al took Max's hands, and began to coax the fists to uncurl. 'I'd just like to go back onto the stage with him. Where the instruments were played. The beautiful violins, the harps. The oboes. The place will still be warm from the music. We'll go there, and you can tell me all about the music you love. Eh, Max? Maybe that will help you remember.'

  'Will she be there?' Max demanded, looking in terror at Milena. It was as if Milena were his mother, as if he were a naughty little boy.

  'No, Max,' said the Snide. 'Just you and me.'

  'If anything happens to him,' said the violinist, and jabbed a finger towards Milena, 'I'll hold you responsible. Max. I'll be waiting downstairs.'

  'And I'll be waiting here,' said Milena.

  Max and the Snide went back down, into the theatre. And Milena waited. How long? What was time? She got to know her own fingernails better. They were bitten, right down to the quick. Please, she prayed, though she knew of nothing to pray to, please let him remember.

  Finally the door opened, and Al came out, supporting Max. Max was sobbing, rubbing fat hands into his eyes. Milena looked into Al's eyes.

  'We found it,' said Al.

  Max broke free and began to run. He ran for the stairs. 'Alice! Alice!' he cried, stumbling down the steps, covering his face.

  Al looked at him as he ran. 'He really didn't know that he'd done it, Milena. It was buried deep, well below the Web.'

  'In the Fire,' said Milena.

  'In his heart,' said the Snide, and blew out again. 'He was like a maze, a horrible twisted tangle, everything unsorted.' Al was staring, looking now at what he had seen, eyes round with fear. 'I nearly didn't get out'

  Milena touched his arm. 'Thank you,' she said. 'Do you want a drink?'

  Al shook his head, no, no. 'I know what drink does. Oh by all the stars! To be like that. To be trapped in that, forever.' Al looked back at the stairs and the plush carpet, as if a ghost stood there. 'At least he gets out. At least he gets out in music'

  Milena found that her sympathy was somewhat limited. 'What did he do with the book?' she asked.

  Al's eyes turned around slowly to look at her. Al spoke very carefully. 'He bundled it up with other old books he had borrowed, and returned them. They were books he had borrowed from the British Museum. You know where that is.' It was a statement, not a question.

  'I should know,' said Milena. There were the merest whispers of memory. It was as if she heard footsteps overhead through a ceiling. 'I grew up there. I was raised there. On the Estate of the Restorers.'

  'There's a wall,' said Al.

  Milena looked up.

  'A wall in you. The Museum lies on the other side of it.'

  'I know,' said Milena. Her childhood lay on the other side of it.

  'And you're going to go there tonight, now?' Al could read her thoughts.

  'I've got to get that book. The Museum won't be locked,' said Milena. 'Do you know the titles of the other books? That will tell me where to start looking.'

  Al touched the tip of Milena's nose. 'Careful, Milena,' he said. 'You keep thrusting, you could hurt yourself.'

  Milena remembered meeting Thrawn. It was her own fault. She kept thrusting.

  The Restoration had come. Milena was convinced that people would want holograms, and she wanted the Babes to have them first. She wanted someone who knew about hologramming, someone who came cheap. So she found herself in a hostel, off the Strand. What sort of person is it, she wondered, who lives so far away from her own Estate? Milena knocked on a purple door. What an awful colour, she thought.

  'Come ih-hnnnn!' sang a woman's voice beyond the door. It sounded like a caricature.

  The room was deep blue inside, full of water. From out of the Coral Reef walls, seaweed sprouted. Schools of thin black fish moved among it with zig-zag precision. White light wriggled like worms over the surface of everything, even Milena's arms. A clump of seaweed spun around, and smiled with a manic, slightly daffy grin. It looked something like an amused death's head, all sinew and bone and pop-eyes. 'We are in a Coral Reef, after all,' it said.

  A pink-scaled fish swam up and then into Milena's hand. Her Rhodopsin skin tingled with the light. Milena held up her hand and saw light glowing inside her flesh, orange like a sunset. Milena looked up and the face now trailed long black feathery fins. Tiger fish, said her viruses. Touch it and you are paralysed.

  'I'm Thrawn McCartney,' the tiger fish said. 'Are you my saviour?'

  'I doubt it,' said Milena. 'Do you need one?'

  'Sure do. No one will give me a job. What did they tell you about me?' Thrawn wanted to hear about herself.

  'They said you were the best hologram technician that the Zoo has,' said Milena.

  'And that I'm a pain in the lymph nodes.'

  'Somewhere else mostly,' admitted Milena.

  'Well I am,' said Thrawn, her face fixed.

  'So am I,' said Milena.

  Thrawn gave a connoisseur's shake of the head. 'No,' she said, and spun back around. The whole room seemed to blink, and the tiger fish was gone. A woman remained, her back towards Milena. 'You're one of those quiet, boring, determined little pains,' she said. She wore a black leotard and looked small and slim. 'I am a great, gushing volcano's mouth of a pain.'

  She tossed what seemed half a hundredweight of black hair over her shoulders and turned, arching h
er back. She was deliberately posing, offering herself. Milena felt a kind of jolt, but not necessarily one of attraction. The woman was dangerously thin. The neck was all tendons. They looked as if they could snap, as if the disproportionately large head could break the tendons and then roll off. The face was haggard. Milena felt something like desire and something queasy, at the same time.

  'I'm about to offer you a job,' warned Milena. But she found she was smiling. 'Do you want to talk about hologramming?'

  'No,' sighed Thrawn. 'Holograms are two hundred years old and about as exciting as dandruff. We could remake the world now, with light.' She glanced about at her underwater world. 'I bet all you want me for is some old opera. You want me to cube in some real places onto the stage. Right? Right?'

  'Yes,' said Milena.

  'We're all so bored with your old operas. We're all so bored with your ficken high-toned quality.' The room blinked again, and she dropped down onto a beanbag.

  It was an ordinary room now. The Coral Reef walls had been plastered over and left unpainted. There was a mattress on the floor, and bags, and a bank of equipment — metal boxes, lights, and leads. A cable went out the window to the Restoration wires along the Strand. Thrawn stretched her legs out straight and looked at Milena. 'I ought to warn you,' she said. 'I've never been Read. I've never been Placed or doctored. So you'll never know what I'm going to do or say next.'

  Milena was still smiling, at the aggression, at the foolishness of it. 'I haven't been Read either,' she said, hoping she sounded unimpressed.

  'Then why are you so dull?' asked Thrawn.

  'I guess some people just naturally are. Like some people are naturally obnoxious.'

  Thrawn liked that. It made her grin. 'Yup,' she agreed. 'So how did you get away?' She rolled over onto her stomach, still stretching, like some starved cat.

  'I didn't. They gave me one final load of viruses and I was so ill they couldn't Read me. In the meantime I was Placed.'

  'Well I ran away,' said Thrawn, rather grandly, comparing herself with Milena. 'I hid out in the Slump, in the reeds. Nobody was going to doctor me. I hid, and then I came back. I tell you, I got terrible grammar.' Then she leaned forward. She leaned forward and used both her arms to push her breasts forward. They hung within the neckline of the leotard. 'Are you?' Thrawn asked, smiling.