Liberator

by Richard Harland

  ‘Just look at her go,’ breathed Septimus.

  The following morning Mr Gibber turned up, requesting shelter in the Norfolk Library. Gillabeth huffed and grumped, but agreed to make room for him. Col was puzzled.

  ‘Why have you come on your own?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not on my own.’ Mr Gibber joggled the wastepaper basket in his arms. ‘Here’s Murgatrude with me.’

  The joggling prompted a deep, growly rumble from the bottom of the basket. Murgatrude didn’t like to be disturbed.

  ‘I meant Dr Blessamy.’

  ‘Dr Blessamy has gone.’ The grimace on Mr Gibber’s face seemed to serve as an expression of grief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Col. ‘I hope it was peaceful.’

  ‘No, not that sort of gone.’ Mr Gibber’s grimace went through a number of rapid contortions. ‘Gone disappeared. Haven’t you heard about the disappearances?’

  ‘What disappearances?’ Gillabeth demanded.

  Mr Gibber performed a small bow in her direction. ‘Upper Decks people gone without a trace. No one hears or sees anything, but suddenly they vanish and never come back. One boy from the ghetto on Thirty-Eighth Deck. One mother from the engineers’ group on Forty-Fourth Deck. Maybe more.’

  ‘And Dr Blessamy,’ said Col.

  ‘Exactly the same, exactly the same. Last night he went to sleep in his favourite armchair. He thought he was the third Dr Blessamy, and I told him if he was the third he’d have been dead for a hundred years. That put him to sleep straight away. Never fails. I tell him how long he’s been dead, and he closes his eyes and drops off.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Pouf!’ Mr Gibber blew out his cheeks. ‘He was gone in the morning!’

  ‘No sign of a struggle?’

  ‘Nothing. Who could have done it?’ Mr Gibber waved his arms dramatically. ‘It’s a complete mystery.’

  ‘The red armbands did it,’ said Gillabeth decisively. ‘Has to be.’

  ‘I’m afraid to stay in the Academy.’ Mr Gibber addressed Col’s sister in a wheedling voice. ‘If they took Dr Blessamy last night, it could be my turn tonight. I know I’ll be safe with you. And Murgatrude.’ He rocked the wastepaper basket as though it held a human baby. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of Murgy disappeared.’

  Col cut short the appeal. ‘We’ve already said yes.’

  ‘And it’s so good of you. I don’t ask for much, just a space to lay my head and—’

  ‘You’ll take what you’re given,’ said Gillabeth.

  ‘Of course, of course. And I shall be most grateful for it.’

  Gillabeth ignored his bowing and scraping. ‘Does the Council know about these disappearances?’ she asked Col.

  ‘I’m not welcome at Council meetings any more.’

  ‘What about your friend on the Council? Riff?’

  Col shook his head. He didn’t know how to explain what had happened to his connection with Riff. He wasn’t even sure himself.

  Mr Gibber seized the chance to re-enter the conversation. ‘Talking about Council meetings . . . I heard some news about the Council. And Riff.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well.’ Mr Gibber lowered his voice for the imparting of secrets. ‘That Riff doesn’t have so much influence any more. And the one called Dunga has stopped attending meetings.’

  ‘Only because she’s still recovering from her injuries,’ Col put in.

  ‘Whatever the reason. There’s only one moderate, and the radicals have all the influence.’

  ‘You mean Shiv?’ Gillabeth asked.

  ‘Him and the other one. What’s her name now? The one with the beautiful black hair.’

  ‘Lye,’ said Col.

  ‘Ah, Lye. Yes, how could I forget?’ Mr Gibber licked his lips. ‘Shiv is madly in love with her. And Padder and Gansy are half in love with her. So I heard.’ He pulled a face. ‘Isn’t that disgusting?’

  Col said nothing. Mr Gibber’s account confirmed his suspicions – especially if Dunga wasn’t attending meetings. Her injuries must be worse than he’d realised, because she certainly wasn’t the type to play the invalid. The loss of her vote made all the difference.

  ‘Of course, those are only rumours,’ said Mr Gibber suddenly. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘That’s what you heard, though?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mr Gibber sniffed, with just a hint of petulance. ‘At least I know more than most people.’

  By ‘most people’, he seemed to mean Col and Gillabeth. Col had never understood the tangled workings of Mr Gibber’s mind, but the tone was beginning to sound familiar.

  ‘We appreciate the information,’ he said firmly. ‘Thank you.’

  Mr Gibber understood that the topic was closed, and looked down into the wastepaper basket. ‘I hope we can find a nice spot for you, Murgy. Somewhere quiet, with no draughts . . .’

  ‘You’ll take what you’re given,’ Gillabeth said again. ‘Follow me.’

  She swung her arms and marched off. Mr Gibber trailed along behind, still murmuring to his pet.

  Col wished he could ask someone about Dunga, or visit her and check on her recovery himself. But he didn’t know the location of her cabin. If only there was some way of getting hold of Riff . . .

  Half an hour later, completely out of the blue, he received a summons to call on Riff in her room.

  The two female Filthies who delivered the summons were unfamiliar to Col: one with a mop of frizzy hair, the other with a round face and yellowy teeth. They seemed very taciturn, and Col didn’t bother to ask why Riff wanted to see him. They accompanied him all the way to her room on Forty-Second Deck.

  ‘You don’t need to come any further,’ he told them, as they rounded the corner into the final corridor. ‘I can . . .’

  He broke off, and his heart plummeted. A whole group of people stood waiting outside the door of Riff’s room. There were two red armbands in the brown uniform of Botany Bay convicts, two Menials in their grey, pajama-like uniforms – and Shiv.

  His heart sank even lower when the two Filthies who had accompanied him pulled red armbands out of their pockets and put them on.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Riff wanted to see me.’

  ‘She needs to see you.’ Shiv smiled a thin-lipped smile. ‘But she doesn’t know it yet.’

  Col whirled around – to discover that his two Filthy escorts had now become guards, and blocked his escape route.

  ‘It was a trick,’ he said slowly, turning back to Shiv. ‘You summoned me to her room.’

  Shiv stepped up to the door and knocked three times. A moment later, Lye stuck out her head.

  ‘You took your time,’ she snapped.

  ‘I had to—’ Shiv began.

  ‘Save it.’ She addressed the red armbands, first the convicts and then the Filthies. ‘You. Bring in the Menials. You. Bring him in.’

  ‘Yes, forward march,’ Shiv added weakly. It was obvious that the red armbands obeyed Lye’s commands rather than his.

  Col was swept forward into the room. He wondered how long Shiv had been subservient to Lye. Had it always been that way? Col had feared that Lye would act as Shiv’s puppet on the Council, but it was clearly the other way round. And the prospect of Lye’s power was infinitely worse . . .

  ‘What is this?’ Riff had been sitting on the chair under the porthole, but jumped up suddenly in amazement. ‘You said you wanted to chat!’

  ‘This is more important,’ answered Lye. ‘A small deception for a larger truth.’

  Riff pointed at Col. ‘Why is he here?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ Lye signalled, and the two convicts propelled the two Menials forward.

  ‘No.’ Riff shrank away and her voice quavered. ‘No.�
�

  Col followed the line of her gaze and saw what he’d failed to notice before. One Menial was male, the other female – and the female Menial had hair that was black in some places, blonde in others.

  In spite of her hunched posture and dull eyes, Col understood immediately. This had to be Riff’s mother. Riff’s mother transformed into a Menial!

  ‘I remembered what you told me about your Mam and Da,’ said Lye. ‘How they were hooked up to be made into Menials. I put Shiv onto the search. Tell her.’

  Shiv hardly seemed to mind being ordered around. ‘I didn’t know what signs to look for at first. But the hair made it easy.’ He pointed to the female Menial’s black and blonde hair. ‘So I watched and noticed one particular male always hanging around near her.’

  Even now, the two Menials were standing very close, almost touching. Shiv reached out, took hold of the male’s chin and rotated it slightly this way and that. He was comparing the Menial’s features to Riff’s.

  ‘Thought so,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ said Riff in a whisper.

  Shiv dropped his hand, but continued his study. ‘Similar shape of the mouth,’ he said. ‘Similar large dark eyes. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Riff, still in a whisper.

  She directed her gaze from one Menial to the other and back again. Her expression was uninterpretable. Horror? Hope? Yearning? Heartbreak? Col couldn’t begin to guess at the feelings churning through her.

  When she spoke, she addressed them both in a tender voice. ‘Hello. I’m your daughter. Do you remember me?’

  They couldn’t speak, of course. Their only reaction was to move even closer, elbow to elbow. Could there be some spark remaining?

  ‘Do you remember anything?’ Riff’s voice was barely audible, as though she probed some infinitely fragile thing. The rest of the world had ceased to exist.

  ‘Nod your heads if you remember,’ she said.

  The two Menials nodded their heads.

  Col held his breath. He had seen the operation in the Changing Room when the limiters were inserted: thin metal discs the size of buttons. He recalled what Grandmother Ebnolia had said about having ‘so many more thoughts than you really need’, and about permanently blocking off ‘the nasty big ones’. But perhaps in exceptional cases . . .

  ‘Nod your heads if you don’t remember,’ said Riff.

  Again the Menials nodded their heads.

  ‘Put your hands on your heads,’ she said.

  Slowly, clumsily, the Menials obeyed.

  ‘Put your hands at your sides again.’

  They were like automatons, mindlessly following instructions. There was no spark. Riff’s face had gone very white and sick-looking.

  She continued to stare at them, chest heaving. Then the storm burst.

  ‘Why?’ She swung round to Lye and Shiv, and shrieked at the top of her voice. ‘How could you do that?’

  Shiv wilted before her rage. ‘We thought . . . we didn’t know . . .’

  But Lye was made of sterner stuff. ‘We did it for your own good.’

  Riff’s lips drew back from her teeth and for a moment she looked like a wild animal. ‘You must be mad! How could they remember me? What did you expect?’

  ‘We expected nothing,’ said Lye. ‘We just wanted you to see. You have to face up to the truth.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to face up to!’

  ‘The truth of what was done to your parents. You never backed away from anything in your life – except this. You must’ve known they could still be alive, but you kept away from Garden Deck. You didn’t want to find out.’

  Riff seemed about to burst out in fury against Lye. Col hoped she would. Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

  ‘It’s not worthy of you!’ Lye stood very upright and implacable. ‘Taking the easy option. You’re better than that. Don’t back away. Expel the weakness. Accept the pain. Be pure and whole and strong.’

  Lye was certainly pure and whole and strong, as her voice rang out and filled the room. She was hard and inflexible like a blade – and it was Riff who crumpled. Suddenly, there were tears streaming down her cheeks and she was gulping for breath as though all the wind had been knocked out of her.

  Lye pointed to the Menials. They hadn’t stirred, hadn’t moved their heads, had barely even blinked.

  ‘Here is the truth,’ she told Riff. ‘Let it be burned into your brain. Remember it, live by it. The ultimate wrong that was done to your Mam and Da. The ultimate cruelty.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Col.

  He hardly knew he’d spoken. He was hurting for Riff, seeing her swamped with grief, her face all twisted up. He just wanted her pain to end.

  Lye whirled on him at once. ‘Ah, the Swank would like me to stop. Wouldn’t that be convenient? So that it can all be hushed up and forgotten. How very desirable!’

  ‘What you’re doing is cruel too,’ Col retorted.

  ‘I’m not doing anything. I’m only showing what was done. What you did, when you turned people into vegetables.’

  ‘I didn’t know about the Changing Room.’

  ‘Oh, of course, nobody knew about it!’ Lye blazed with contempt. ‘Squirm away! Here’s the living proof before us. And it’ll never be forgotten. Not by me. Not in here.’ Lye pointed a finger at her forehead. ‘And not by her.’ She pointed to Riff.

  Riff appeared shell-shocked, though no longer gasping for air.

  Col appealed to her. ‘I didn’t know about the Changing Room. You remember—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Riff spat the words in his face.

  ‘You must remember.’ He couldn’t adjust, he blundered on. ‘I saved you from the operation.’

  ‘You did it! All of you! All guilty!’

  ‘No, listen to me.’

  ‘I don’t want to listen! I’ll never listen! You turned my Mam and Da into vegetables! You and your surgery! You and your limiters!’

  Col shook his head and took a step backwards. ‘You’re just upset. You don’t know what you’re saying. I understand.’

  Riff came after him. ‘Then understand this!’

  She swung her hand and dealt him a vicious blow across the face.

  Col felt as though the ground had been pulled out from under his feet. It wasn’t the pain, he hardly noticed that his cheek was on fire and stinging. It was the way Riff looked straight at him without even seeing him. Col Porpentine had ceased to exist. He was no longer an individual or a friend. In her eyes, he was a whole class, an example of the old regime and her Upper Decks oppressors.

  ‘Get him out of my sight,’ she hissed. ‘Before I really hit him.’

  In the next moment, all four of the red armbands had formed a guard around Col. He let them usher him away.

  He saw Lye take Riff’s hand in a show of sympathy. The two Menials remained hunched and unfocused, seemingly oblivious to all the drama. Shiv had a triumphant grin on his face.

  Too late, it all came clear. Lye and Shiv had brought him along to Riff’s room for a reason. He wasn’t there as an observer but as the true object of their plan. The weakness that Lye wanted Riff to expel wasn’t just a weakness over her parents, but a weakness over him. The scene had worked out exactly as they’d intended.

  Col tried to tell himself that Riff’s anger was just a reaction of the moment. He remembered what she had once said about needing to trust her a little more. And Septimus had told him he had to fight for her – if he loved her and she loved him. But did she love him?

  Unpleasant images kept flashing up before his mind’s eye. Lye taking Riff’s hand . . . Riff’s look of non- recognition when she couldn’t even see him as a person. He didn’t deserve that. Lye had deliberately hurt Riff with the sight of her parents, but it wasn’t Lye wh
o had suffered the blame. As far as trust went, Riff seemed to trust him less than she trusted Lye.

  That night, he had the worst dream of his life, which went on and on for ages. He was on Bottom Deck, the lowest level of the juggernaut above the engine-room. Here, in the time of the old regime, he and Riff had hidden from officers behind the coal mounds. Now Lye and Riff were hiding from him.

  At first, when he spotted them, he called out and ran towards them. But they only shuddered and ran away. The look of disgust on Riff’s face exactly matched the look on Lye’s.

  Later in the dream he heard them laughing together. He hurried past pipes and iron piers, and came out into a patch of blue-white light. There they were – and it was him they were laughing at. Vicious, mocking laughter, as though they’d known of his approach all along.

  He tried to run after them, but they ducked round behind the nearest coal mound and disappeared.

  So it went on. He went looking for them in one of the cage-like viewing bays that hung down from the ceiling of Below. Clouds of steam and smoke obscured everything.

  ‘Where are you?’ he shouted.

  ‘Stop looking at us!’ came the answer.

  ‘Stop pawing us!’ cried a second voice.

  ‘Ugh! Nasty greasy little Swank eyes!’

  Then the steam and smoke cleared. Riff and Lye stood brushing each other down as though something unclean had crawled over them. When Col tried to justify himself, suddenly they were no longer there.

  He made a rational decision in the dream, and stopped pursuing them. But he still couldn’t avoid them. Wherever he was, they were always nearby, always together, always laughing and whispering. He was sure that Lye was poisoning Riff’s mind against him.

  At one point, he was passing the piled-up food stores beside a food chute – the stores which had once been dropped down to Filthies, but which no longer existed in reality – when he heard a spitting sound. Two blobs of wetness landed on his cheek and the side of his neck.

  He saw their faces then, sticking up above the bags and sacks.