AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded. “Dr. Ferry.”
“Sit down wherever you like.” His hand rested on the arm of a couch, inviting her to the place beside him. She chose a seat facing him, cleared off the mess of papers and computer discs that covered it. The whole office smelled sour in spite of Ship’s air filtration. Ferry appeared to be drunk . . . at least happy.
“Hali,” he said, and recrossed his legs so one foot reached out to touch hers. “You’re being reassigned.”
Again, she nodded. Groundside?
“You’re going to the Natali,” Ferry said.
It was totally unexpected, and she blinked at him stupidly. To the Natali? The elite corps which handled all natural births had never been her ambition. Not even her hope. A dream, yes . . . but she was not the type to hope for the impossible.
“How do you feel about that?” Ferry asked, moving her foot with his.
The Natali! Working daily with the sacrament of WorShip!
She nodded to herself as the reality of it seeped through her. She would join the elite who opened the hatchway to the mystery of life . . . she would help rear the children shipside until they were assigned to their own schools and quarters at the age of seven annos.
Ferry smiled a red-stained smile. “You look stunned. Don’t you believe me?”
She spoke slowly. “I believe you. I suspected that this . . .” She waved a hand at his office. “. . . was for reassignment, but . . .”
Ferry made no move to respond, so she went on.
“I thought I’d be going groundside. Everyone seems to be going there, lately.”
He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them.
“You’re not happy with this assignment?”
“Ohhh, I’m very happy with it. It’s just . . .” She put a hand to her throat. “I never thought I . . . I mean . . . Why me?”
“Because you deserve it, my dear.” He chuckled. “And there’s talk of moving the Natali groundside. You may get the best of both worlds.”
“Groundside?” She shook her head. Too many shocks were coming at her one after the other.
“Yes, groundside.” He spoke as though explaining something simple to an errant child.
“But I thought . . . I mean, the foremost provision of WorShip is that we give our children to Ship until they’re seven. Ship designated the Natali as the trustees of birth . . . and their quarters are here, the estate . . .”
“Not Ship!” Ferry’s interruption was guttural. “Some Ceepee did it. This is a matter for our determination.”
“But doesn’t Ship . . .”
“There’s no record of Ship doing this. Now, our Ceepee has ruled that it is no violation of WorShip to move the Natali groundside.”
“How . . . how long . . . until . . .”
“Perhaps a Pandoran anno. You know—quarters, supplies, politics.” He waved it all off.
“When do I go to the Natali?”
“Next diurn. Take a break. Get your things moved over. Talk toooo . . .” He picked up a note from the jumble on his desk, squinted. “. . . Usija. She’ll take care of you from there.”
His foot brushed the back of her heel, then rubbed her instep.
“Thank you, Doctor.” She pulled her foot back.
“I don’t feel your gratitude.”
“But I do thank you, especially for the time off. I have some notes to catch up on.”
He held up an empty glass. “We could have a drink . . . to celebrate.”
She shook her head, but before she could say no, he leaned forward, grinning. “We’ll be neighbors, soon, Hali. We could celebrate that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Groundside.” He pushed the glass toward her. “After the Natali go . . .”
“But who’ll be left here?”
“Production facilities, mostly.”
“Ship? A factory?” She felt her face blaze red.
“Why not? What other use will we have for Ship when we’re groundside?”
She jumped to her feet. “You would lobotomize your own mother!” Whirling from his startled gaze, she fled.
All the way back to her quarters, she heard the drum of Yaisuah’s voice in her ears: “If they do these things in a green tree, what will they do in a dry?”
Chapter 40
I like seeing things fall into place.
—Kerro Panille, The Notebooks
NIGHTSIDE AFTER nightside, always nightside! The horror! Legata awoke on the deck in a shipside cubby, her hammock hanging around her like the torn shreds of her nightmares. Sweat and fear chilled her in the dark.
Slowly, reason returned. She felt the remnants of the hammock on and under her, the cold of the deck against her palms.
I’m shipside.
She had come up earlier at Oakes’ command to check out reports that Ferry was too far gone on alcohol to be effective. It had shocked her, getting off the shuttle in a familiar shipbay, to see how few Shipmen formed the arrival crew. Staffing raids by Lewis were decimating the shipside work force to replace losses at the Redoubt.
How many people did they really lose?
She tugged pieces of hammock out from under her, hurled them into the darkness.
Ferry, warned of her approach, had gulped too many ‘wake-pills and had been a jittering mess when she found him. She had dressed him down in fury which had surprised even her, and had removed the last of his Colony liquor supply.
At least, she hoped it was the last of it.
I have to do something about these nightmares.
Some details remained unclear upon waking, but she knew she dreamed of blood and her most tender flesh peeled back by dozens of needlenosed instruments—all of this backed by the feverish glitter of Morgan Oakes’ smile. Oakes; thick-lipped smile . . . but Murdoch’s eyes. And . . . somewhere in the background . . . Lewis laughing.
She found pieces of her bedding, an intact cushion, pulled them together and, still in the dark, dragged herself across the cubby to a mat. Only once before had she felt this beaten, this empty . . . this helpless.
The Scream Room.
It was why she had run the P—to regain some pieces of her self-respect. Self-respect regained . . . but no important memories.
What happened in that room? What kind of a game is Morgan playing? Why did he send me in there?
She remembered the preliminaries. Innocent enough. Oakes had given her a few drinks, left her with a holo canister which detailed as he put it, “a few of the treats available to those who can afford them.”
He had begun by showing her technical summaries and graphs of the work Lewis was doing on E-clones. The drinks fuzzed her thinking, but most of it remained in memory.
“Lewis has made remarkable modifications in the cloning system,” Oakes said.
Remarkable, indeed.
Lewis could grow a clone to age thirty annos in ten diurns.
He could engineer clones for special functions.
It had occurred to her as she watched the holo display of Lab One’s clones that she could begin playing this game with Oakes, but that they must switch to her rules.
I didn’t even know the game!
When Oakes had suggested she inspect Lab One, she had not suspected that he wanted her to . . . that she was expected to . . .
Nothing is sacred!
The thought kept returning. She breathed in a deep lungful of the sweetly filtered shipside air. How different it was from groundside. She knew she was wasting time. There were things she must remember before returning to Oakes.
He believes he has nothing to fear from me now. I had better keep it that way.
His powers were not diminished. But after all he had done to her, after the Scream Room, she still felt that she was the only person who knew him well enough to beat him. There would be no opposition from him as long as he did not consider her a threat . . . or a challenge.
As long as he wants my body . . . and now that I know the game we’re really playin
g . . .
Anxiety began to build in her—the nightmares . . . the lost memories . . .
