by Naomi Foyle
There was a Tablette tray, she saw now, mounted on a jointed metal swing-arm to a railing running down the left side of the bed. The tray was nearly vertical and pushed to one side. She pulled it towards her. The screen was flowing with fractals: deep cogs, symmetrical petals, endless spirals. As she studied them a pale but pointed voice swam from the cloth and rubber lilypad at the base of her skull, up to the fine tip of the taproot in her head.
WELCOME ASTRA
‘Gaiaaaaaa. Gaiaaaaaa.’ The voice in her head was drowned out by a woman’s cry, a voice travelling from somewhere outside her. She turned her head to the right. Her shoulder burned. About twenty feet away, a woman in a bed just like hers, with a shaved head like hers, was singing and raising her arms to the courtyard. She was straining to lift herself out of the bed but she remained clamped to it. Twisting to observe the woman more intently, Astra realised her own hips were restricted. She wasn’t sure if this mattered. The woman wasn’t calling to her, after all.
Fwup fwup. Fwup fwup.
A bird arrived: an Owleon – Silver – landing on the sheet, shaking out his feathers, lifting a claw with a memory clip attached. She had no food to give him. She held out her wrist and delicately he climbed onto it. She stroked him. He wasn’t Silver. He was young, his white belly feathers still fluffy and full, and his shawl was more amber than grey. He inched up her arm and held out his claw.
She untwisted the memory clip and Not-Silver hopped to the foot of the bed. But what was she to do with it? Oh, yes: the Tablette tray. Later she would insert the clip, but right now the red sea was swimming again in front of her eyes.
* * *
When she woke again, it was raining. She was immersed in the glimmer and rush of the downpour and she didn’t think to consider where she was. Then she recognised the bed and dimly recalled the visitation of the Owleon. The memory clip, she saw, was now resting on a narrow, slightly battered groove running along the bottom edge of the Tablette tray. She stared at the groove and its dimpled indentations and for the first time it occurred to her: I am not at home.
She should get up, go and find someone, but when she tried to slide her legs out of the bed she discovered again that she couldn’t. She lifted the sheet. A thick white belt was wrapped around her body, then around the bed itself.
It was all very perplexing. Who could she ask? The woman in the bed to the right was lying with her eyes closed and her knees spread. Her mattress was flat and her right arm was moving beneath her sheet, her hand obviously between her legs. Her lips were moving, but she made no sound.
Astra looked to her left. A similar distance away stood another bed, this one occupied by an elderly man, sitting upright. A few strands of grey hair drifted over his scalp. He had pushed his sheet aside, revealing the full length of his body, a skin-sheathed skeleton, secured by his own white belt. His arms were raised and moving strangely, one fast and zigzaggy, the other slow and swoopy, as if he were conducting the storm. The velocity of the rain increased and the man’s Gaia plough stiffened and twitched. With his slow hand he reached down and massaged the tip.
She faced forward into the dark pelting rain. In her peripheral vision the Tablette screen was pulsing with ever-mutating floral geometry.
People Gaia-playing in public – but was she in public? This was a puzzle.
YOU HAVE QUESTIONS.
WE HAVE DELIVERED THE ANSWERS.
The voice was kind and correct: yes, Silver – no, Not-Silver – had brought her a message. She reached for the memory clip. It was grooved and shell-like in her fingers. She mustn’t drop it, mustn’t let it tumble to the floor. She swung the Tablette in front of her and slid the clip down its frame to the resting notch. It clicked into place. The fractals on the screen fused and shimmered with the voice in her skull.
ASTRA ORDOTT.
ALL IS WELL.
YOU ARE RESTING WITH US.
YOUR MEMORIES ARE OUR MEMORIES
AND OURS ARE YOURS.
TO REQUEST A MEMORY
SWIPETYPE THREE KEYWORDS.
MAXIMUM ORDER:
SIX MEMORIES PER OWLEON VISIT.
ALL MEMORIES WILL BE DELIVERED
IN THE OPTIMUM RATIO
OF ANTICIPATION TO CONSUMMATION.
ALL BODILY NEEDS WILL BE ATTENDED TO
IN FUGUE STATE.
GAIA LOVES YOU.
ALL IS WELL.
All was well. Her memories were safe. Hot liquid filled her eyes, spilled over the rims. She could place an order – when? Now. She pulled the Tablette towards her and thumbprinted the corner. The keyboard appeared. SILVER, she swipetyped. FEEDING. FEATHERS. The words floated on the screen. When the final letter had been inputted they flashed twice and the voice returned.
YOUR MEMORY REQUEST
IS NOW CLIP-LOADED.
YOU MAY REQUEST
FIVE REMAINING MEMORIES
THIS OWLEON VISIT.
TO EDIT ORDERS PRESS ‘EDIT’.
TO CANCEL ORDERS PRESS ‘CANCEL’.
TO SEND CLIP, RELEASE OWLEON.
As the voice spoke, the order command buttons appeared, one by one, on the screen. On the side of the Tablette the memory clip flashed green like … like … oh yes …
EMERALD RING FINGER she input. Then stopped. What else did she need to remember? It was so difficult to think of anything not already encompassed by the courtyard, the bed, the Tablette, the voice in her head. Oh, of course. She flushed. How could she forget to order a Gaia memory? GAIA PLAY … PEAK she entered. Then GAIA HYMN … FAVOURITE.
She had two orders left, the voice reminded her, but surely four memories were enough for today? A shadow was muting the screen: Not-Silver hovered above the bed, his scaly yellow claws massaging the air. She detached the clip and pushed the Tablette tray away and the Owleon dropped to her chest. His feathers were dry. It had stopped raining, she realised; the hushing sound from the courtyard was the wind in the trees and the birds beginning to call to each other again. His eyes, though, were wet: wet black stones in a soft white heart. She could stare into them forever. At last, after she had plunged to the bottom of a black ocean and returned with the moon in her mouth, he lifted his claw, she replaced the clip around his ankle and he flew back into the whispering night.
* * *
The light moved slowly across the courtyard, falling over the edge of the balcony, gilding the tips of the railings, then passing on. Not-Silver didn’t return. To her left, a large Owleon swooped down onto the old man’s chest. The man stroked the bird’s feathers, communing with its dignity and grace for what seemed like hours. Finally he unclasped a clip from the bird’s claw and attached it to his own Tablette. The golden light from the screen bathed his face and chest and Astra could see that he was smiling. She began to feel light inside, a hollow, brittle, difficult feeling that pre occupied her for a time. There was a slight tender swelling in her stomach and as with the burning patch between her legs, which had developed a crust, she sensed it would be dangerous to probe this pain. The only solution to these dilemmas was to sleep again.
When she woke it was twilight and her mouth tasted like – she licked her teeth – like fennel. The hurt place between her legs was numb and the pain in her abdomen was gone, replaced by a creamy cushion of pleasure. She put her hands beneath the sheet and felt around her Gaia garden. There was a triangular scab between her anus and vagina: a healing burn mark. No wonder she was in bed, being taken care of. She stroked her stomach in small circles, dipping her fingers into the moist crease above the burn. The bed began to vibrate beneath her, small nodules emerging from the mattress to massage her muscles. After she’d peaked, she lay listening to the whirring tremors and chamber harmonies of the birds, waiting for Not-Silver’s return.
She must have closed her eyes again because he came back in bright daylight, bearing a memory clip. Oh yes, the memory clip: her order. She replaced the clip on the Tablette frame and an order icon appeared on the screen.
MEMORY ORDERS
AOA001–AOA004
HAVE BEEN FULFILLED.
YOU MAY DOWNLOAD THESE ORDERS
AND SAVE IN THE FOLDERS PROVIDED.
YOU MAY PLACE
SIX REMAINING MEMORY REQUESTS
THIS OWLEON VISIT.
Order AOA001 was a perfectly hatched memory of Silver on her wrist: the exact patterns delicately brushed on his wings, the curve of his beak, the feeling of luminosity in her chest when she let go of the jesses and he launched his fragile cargo of bones and quills into the air. She replayed it over and over, first watching it on the screen, then closing her eyes to see it in her head. Not-Silver perched on the railing, watching the screen too; sometimes when Silver lifted and stretched, he did too. As she studied the screen, hints of other images edged into her mind: other memories fitted next to this one, she realised; they were clicking against it like beads on a string.
She saved the memory in a folder she named Silver, then thumbprinted the keyboard and placed a new order. HELIUM AVIARY CLEANING. HIPBEAD STRING. That would be enough. No, wait. One more. There was a friend she wanted to see again. A girl she’d Gaia-played with. Silvie. That was right. SILVIE WOODLAND SIESTA.
* * *
Not-Silver brought her new memories every visit: sometimes just one, sometimes two or three, and not always in the order that she’d requested them. The beautiful and moving memories – SILVER CHICK FEEDING; HOKMA LIVING ROOF; SILVIE GAIA PLAY – arrived just when she thought she couldn’t bear being without them for a moment longer. The silly, playful snippets – MEEM BERRY BISCUITS; PEAT EARTHSHIP DANCING – sometimes came right away and sometimes they were randomly sprinkled with the rest. The painful ones – NIMMA IMBOD INTERVIEW; AHN KEZCAM OFFICE; BOY SOUTHERN BELT – the ones she ordered later, when she felt courageous but at the same time sick with trepidation, came when she’d almost forgotten she’d ordered them. Some of the happy memories were sharp and glorious, triumphs of remembrance, every detail as clear as if trapped beneath a microscope. Some were fuzzy and fleeting, but no less beautiful for that. She fingered them like scraps of cloth, held them to her nose, inhaled the scents of familiar bodies, perfumes, dishes. The painful memories, though, were neither bold nor rich; they had shrunk, somehow, or faded; they were drained of hurt, she learned, and could be watched with an increasing sense of relief and then filed on the Tablette with a heartskip of happiness. Once she had ordered her memories, she could reorder them, store them in a hundred different folders and replay them in a hundred different algorithms: GREEK DRAMA MIX; GAIA SYMPHONY MIX; SHAMANIC JAZZ MIX; NORDIC SAGA MIX – the list of show-streams went on and on, endless permutations of memories, countless ways to recognise and relive herself, to see how tiny were her fears and doubts, how powerful and beautiful were her family, her home.
After a time, though – she wasn’t sure how many days and nights – the memory-shows began to repeat themes and emotions. While still comforting, they lost their initial sense of revelation. She was happy still, content, but she began to be vaguely aware that something was missing. The consummation was reassuring as always, but the anticipation had faded. She tried to supplement the memory-shows, to order memories she hadn’t thought of yet, but that was an impossible task. Memories were like squirrels: they had to come to you; you couldn’t run into the forest and grab them. Patiently, for hours, for days, she held out the acorn of her desire for novelty, until finally the voice returned:
YOUR MEMORIES ARE OUR MEMORIES
AND OURS ARE YOURS
Our memories? More memories? Memories from before she was born? Her hand hovered over the keyboard. IS-LAND she swipetyped. 76RE. No: she deleted the date. 10RE: the year of Is-Land’s founding. One more keyword … ELPIS.
* * *
The order was fulfilled more quickly than most – not immediately, not so soon as to render the memory a quick fix, but not after a prolonged, painful wait, and not after so much time had elapsed she had forgotten her request. After two fugue states had passed but the desire was still keen in her stomach, Order AOB337 arrived.
The memory was a mixture of image and sound. For the first time music accompanied the stream of images: Gaians pouring off buses with bags of seeds in their hands; Gaians cleaning streets, building Earthships, joking with CONC soldiers; Gaians laughing and singing – though she couldn’t hear the words, just the strains of panpipes floating somewhere overhead. Then one of the women crouched down before a small girl whose face was partially hidden by the small potted sapling she was holding. The girl crooked the tree in one arm and with the other she waved at Astra. She had a round face and blonde curly hair. She looked familiar – oh yes, she looked like Sheba …
Two men knelt down and joined the image. The man to the right of Elpis was sturdy and weathered, with a strong brow and a tanned, silver-haired chest. The man behind her with his arms on the other adult’s shoulders was smooth-skinned and pale, with a sculpted crop of thick black hair. He was wearing a blue-and-grey chequered skirt – no, wait, it was called a kilt.
CHARLES MONTERAY, HEW BELSON,
KALI BELDOTT AND ELPIS SHIPDOTT
PLANT THE FIRST OAK TREE
IN THE GROUNDS OF THE NEW
IS-LAND NATIONAL WHEEL MEET.
The images of the tree planting were followed by others: Elpis at school, Elpis riding a pony, Elpis picking tomatoes, Elpis cleaning between her toes with a flannel and looking up giggling. In every shot she looked more and more like Sheba – Sheba, the Shelter sister Astra had never met but knew so well, Sheba dancing, laughing, running through the photoshow on the Earthship mantelpiece: Sheba. Now an image of Sheba’s Fountain, her delicate tree of tears, rose in her mind, merging with the pictures of the Pioneers, and faintly, oh so faintly, a chorus of young children joined their voices in the ‘O Shield’ hymn. Astra was overwhelmed with yearning. Sheba. I miss you. Sheba, where are you? Sheba, I need you. Sheba, teach me how to be you.
* * *
When she woke this time, she was in a room with white walls, facing an opaque window. Her head hurt – not the throbbing in her temples she sometimes got when she’d studied too much, but a deep fireball of pain cannoning up from the base of her skull into her frontal lobe. She shut her eyes again. Her throat was fissured, a jagged crevice in a rock face.
‘Water,’ she begged.
‘Astra. You’re back,’ Klor said. His spade-callused palm was grasping her wrist and he was pressing a cup into her hand. ‘It will take a little while for your brain to adjust. This is some medicine to help take the pain away. Just drink slowly. I’ll wait.’
3.7
‘Ugh.’ She grimaced as she swallowed the bitter chalky-pink mixture. ‘I was having such weird dreams. Silver was there, but he wasn’t Silver, and he was bringing me – I don’t know, like a Tablette playlist of my whole life. It went on and on – it felt like I was there for months.’
‘Astra, darling.’ Klor was sitting on a chair beside the bed. ‘What’s the last thing you remember?’
She blinked. The dream was still vivid in her mind. ‘There was a Tablette tray, and it talked to me,’ she said. It was sore at the base of her skull; as she spoke she reached round and touched the spot. It was covered with a plaster, but she couldn’t feel the rubber nib she remembered from the dream … She looked around at the stark walls. She wasn’t on a balcony but in a small, bare, whitewashed room, facing a window open onto the steppes. The bed had a railing, just like the one in the dream, but not a Tablette tray. ‘Klor?’ she asked. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in a neurohospice near Atourne. You’ve been here for three months.’
She frowned. ‘Why am I in a neurohospice?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Am I dying?’
‘No, no!’ Klor leaned forward and took her hand. ‘Good Gaia, no – this is the best neurotreatment centre in Is-Land. You’re on the memory reordering ward.’ Klor’s skin was pallid, as if he hadn’t had any sun for weeks. He gave her hand a little shake. ‘Astra, listen to me. I may only be able to visit you this
once. You have to tell me: do you remember what happened? What you did in Ahn’s office?’
She was on a memory reordering ward? Like the women on the bus to Sippur? She sat up, but her movement was restricted. There was something tied around her waist. ‘I’m in a madhouse!’ she cried, scrabbling at the restraint beneath the sheet.
‘No, Astra, that’s not a Gaian term – you know we don’t call people with mental health issues mad.’
‘Ahn does. Ahn called me mad.’ Images came flooding back to her: hurling the Kezcams, Ahn’s Gaia plough flopping with fright. ‘He’s had me locked up,’ she yelped. ‘He wants me to die in a madhouse.’
She retched, and a thin stream of bile emerged from her lips. Klor passed her a bottle of water and she rinsed her mouth and spat over the edge of the bed. She couldn’t lean all the way over and some of the water splatted the edge of the mattress and Klor’s arm. She bent over, clutching her stomach. She remembered everything now: the meeting with the counsellor, her march from Wise House, Hokma’s letter – Hokma’s death.
‘No, no he doesn’t,’ Klor urged. ‘IMBOD put you here, Astra – it was for your own safety. You hurt Ahn very badly. If Russett hadn’t stopped you, you could have killed him.’