The Red Queen (28 page)

‘My dream was of death,’ she said unexpectedly, as we came in sight of the common, the turning in the path to the huts. She did not look at me now, though she went on talking. ‘It frightened me. But it comes to me that one must die in the end, and that if one has lived deeply, if one has known the love that is friendship, it is a thing that can be accepted gracefully.’

Now she looked directly at me and put her hand on her heart as I had done. I did not understand what she was trying to tell me, but where there had been misery and fear in her face I now saw only tranquillity. Acceptance. She smiled, a quiet smile full of gratitude and kindness.

I was baffled, though I was conscious that I had comforted her in some way. It was not until we were approaching the door to the bath hut, from which steam billowed in a great cloud, that I felt suddenly worried about our exchange. It was as if something momentous had happened, in which I had played a pivotal part, and yet I was ignorant of it. I still had no idea what had distressed her so profoundly, or what she now seemed to have accepted. What had my reaching out to her done? What had changed after I reached out to her emotionally and then allowed – invited her – into my own emotions? I had acted on impulse, wanting her to feel the relief and wonder I had once felt at the discovery that I was not a lone freak. But she had talked of death and acceptance of death, and she had smiled.

Perhaps she had been thinking of the man who had been killed not long before I came to Habitat. Perhaps she feared the same would happen to her because of what she was. All of the Speci must fear that terrible death, and maybe she had dreamed that she would suffer the same fate, her fear being fuelled by the knowledge that she was not a good Speci, failing to perfectly fit the list of requirements in Covenant. But why should being shown what she was have given her such a look of relief and acceptance? And what had the red memory seed signified?

The simplest thing would be to ask Dameon to use his formidable empathy on the girl, for he was more skilled at deriving information from emotional emanations. I ought to have asked him the previous night on the common, but aside from my slight estrangement from him since my confrontation in the burying field with Balboa, my thoughts had all been of God and Hannah’s grave.

This reminded me with a rush of excitement and anticipation that my friends had almost certainly gone to the burying field the night before, and they might have found Jacob’s grave. I hoped I would see them at firstmeal.

I glanced at Tash standing at the door to the bathing hut, her smile now peaceful, and felt again a stab of unease at having wrought such a transformation by some means I did not understand. I
had
to ask God about the murders, for the computermachine must have sent the Tumen to kill the man who had died. Ana had been right in saying there was no reason for God to be evasive or to lie. It would not feel shame or guilt or even fear of the consequences of telling me what it had done, as a human would do. It would tell me if I asked in the right way, or it would tell me that its programming did not allow it to tell me. And that would be an answer of sorts, too.

I was about to ask Tash why we did not enter when two Speci women came out, laughing, their faces flushed and rosy, their hair wet and slicked to their heads. They looked at me without great interest, yet it seemed to me the eyes of the older one lingered momentarily on Tash, though with no discernible change of expression.

Then a young man in white trews and a tunic stepped out and bade us enter, giving us each a thin towel.

Inside, the air was thick with heat and moisture and I looked around in wonder, seeing that the hut was one large open chamber containing a series of streaming hot pools separated by woven partitions. Tash said all of the pools were fed by a hot spring via pipes running under the floor. The pools ranged from very hot to cold. I asked what happened to the water that was used and she told me that it was piped away constantly, some of it to water the common and some to be used in the privies and washhouse. All of it passed through a machine that cleansed it, though not for drinking or cooking, she added vaguely.

Tash led the way to an empty pool towards the back of the chamber and I wondered who maintained the pipes, for even Beforetime artefacts would need to be repaired, and things must sometimes want replacing, too, especially when water was involved?

Tash dipped a bare toe into the water after slipping off her sandals, then she smiled at me and, without further ado, stripped down to the same kind of light loose undergarment I had been given to wear beneath my tunic. I did the same, after taking off my sandals, glancing around as I did so. The partitions were low enough that I could see other people moving about in the thick, damp, cloudy air. There were windows all along one wall, beyond which plants rose up in a row, dark shapes against a sky beginning to blush faintly pink. The sole light in the bathing house this early in the morning was the light of the small red lamps fixed to the walls. There was no flame and yet the light they offered had the same shifting inconstant flicker.

I heard a soft word and then the peeling laugh of a child, swiftly hushed. That froze me for a moment, for I had not set eyes on a single child even in the eating hut. But from what I had been told, children lived somewhat apart from the rest of the Speci community. I thought of the way the child’s laugh had been swiftly quelled and felt stricken all at once, knowing that when I left Habitat, it was not only Tash I would be condemning to this life until her death, but children too, who would never know anything but this flat, bland existence.

If only there was a way to make God release the Speci. But Hannah had tried and failed to make God release them, and had ended up joining the Speci in Habitat, maybe partly in remorse because she was responsible for their captivity.

‘Elspeth, get in the water!’ Tash called softly, and I realised I had been standing there in my undergarments at the edge of the pool for some time. It was fortunate that I had represented myself as a simpleton, I thought drily.

I stepped into the water quickly, gasping at the heat, which was just tolerable.

‘We can move to one of the cooler pools,’ she said. ‘It is only that there are people in them already.’

‘In a bit,’ I said, sinking into the water slowly.

For a moment I floated like that, my whole body light and hot, all of the tensions in me melting and flowing away.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ Tash said. ‘It is my favourite place in all Habitat. I love being assigned to work here.’

I heard another laugh, a man this time, followed by soft words from a woman, and thought this hut must be a favourite place for many Speci. Through the opening in the partition, and through the gaps in other partitions, I could make out the shapes of several people in pools, soaking. All looked naked, for the light undergarments that seemed to be worn by men and women alike, clung and became transparent. I wondered why people wore clothes to bathe, and if there was some tradition forbidding nakedness. If so, it must have developed within Habitat, for I could not see Hannah caring about such a trivial thing. The bathhouse itself was intimate and made for modesty, but it was not puritanical or secretive, and I supposed that it had been built as part of the original plans for Habitat. Those had not been Hannah’s, of course. Perhaps a group had been tasked with imagining Habitat and then figuring out how it could be created.

Several men and women drifted past our enclosure and looked in, then passed on, perhaps also seeking a pool they would not have to share. I closed my eyes and floated, wondering why immersing myself in hot water always felt so good. Then I thought of the way the ship fish regarded water and wondered if it was something to do with the way spirit could move within water. I heard a step and opened my eyes to see a women approaching. She wore a long plain tunic and carried some small jugs on a tray. Squatting down gracefully, she set two on the side of the pool and Tash told me the thick liquid they contained was for cleansing flesh and hair. Her words made the woman look at me more closely, then she smiled and went away.

Watching her depart, I thought how, from the first, I had regarded the Speci as adversaries at worst, and as hindrances at best. The truth was that they were merely human, imprisoned by walls and by the ideas and fears of people who were long dead. And it was not just these Speci who had been imprisoned, but generations of them in the past and yet to come, who had lived and died as prisoners.

It is not my task to free them, I told myself sternly, rubbing the thick soap into my hair. My quest was to ensure there was a world for them to discover, if ever they freed themselves. Maybe I muttered the words aloud, or more likely I sent out some emotion that prodded Tash, for she gave me a quizzical look.

I shut my eyes, immersed myself, and shook my head to rinse the suds from my hair, then I emerged again to find Tash was now floating on her back. Steam hung above the water, which had the same strong mineral odour I had noticed in the bowls of bathing water brought to the hut. Two women and an older, fit-looking man entered through the opening in the partition and began to take off their clothes without interrupting a quiet conversation about a process used to hasten the drying of cacti fibre. They paid no attention to us. One of the women said that fibre could be handled more easily while it was wet, but the man with her said he saw no need to change the method they had been using, since it worked perfectly well. One of the others suggested it might be quicker.

‘Why would there be a need to do it more quickly?’ he asked, and the women seemed lost for an answer.

‘Do you want to shift to another pool?’ Tash asked me quietly. ‘Not that it will be much use.’

I started a little, for she had glided up beside me unnoticed. I let her see my puzzlement.

‘All of the pools will be occupied by now and it will get worse the later it gets,’ she explained. ‘The baths are always crowded, except for very early in the morning and very late in the evening. Feyat thinks it is a sin that people come here so much and she is trying to get the Committee to restrict the number of baths people are allowed to have. Fortunately Sikoka loves baths, too. He sometimes comes twice a day.’ She giggled a little at this and I was startled by the lightness of her voice and manner after the strange intensity of our exchange on the path. Perhaps I had been wrong in taking her mood so seriously. If only I could coerce her, I would soon enough discover what ailed her.

After a time, Tash announced regretfully that we would have to get out or miss firstmeal. I would have been glad to miss a meal to remain in the bathing hut, but I did not suggest it. I would be told I had to attend the sitting I was assigned to, and in any case I had no doubt that at least one of the others would be there waiting to tell me what they had done and to hear what I had done. Which was nothing, I thought glumly. I only hoped they had had a more fruitful night than I.

Tash insisted on getting out with me, though she was not to eat until later, and she showed me where to get fresh underclothes, tunic and overtunic, my old clothes having been swept away unnoticed. Then she showed me a little partitioned space where I could change in privacy. Once dressed, she insisted on brushing and preparing my hair. I offered to brush her hair too, though I said I could not manage the complex nest she had made of mine. She gave me a look of sweet joy and sat down before me.

I did the best I could, filled with pity for a girl who was so alone that the offer of such a small thing was cause for such radiant happiness. In that moment the thought that I would leave her seemed a betrayal of the sharpest and most cruel kind.

‘Elspeth,’ said a voice close by.

I turned to see Ana, and my heart began to pound with anticipation. ‘Did you . . .’ I began, then stopped.

Tash stood and greeted her politely. Ana responded dismissively enough that Tash smiled at me and left. I wanted to stop her, but I needed to know what Ana would tell me and perhaps it was possible to speak more freely here, as it was in the eating hut. Ana watched Tash go, then turned to me and shook her head, very deliberately. So, we had to be careful then. She mimicked looking around and finding nothing, and finally she made a common beast signal meaning many. My heart sank. They had not found the grave. They had looked, but there were so many. She was looking at me expectantly now, and I had to shake my own head and gesture to the Speci moving about. Her face registered understanding and frustration. Then her expression changed and she pointed at me. I understood. She was telling me I must keep trying to speak with God. I nodded, pointed to her and mimicked looking. The others must keep looking, too. She nodded and then glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. Perhaps they were, for she said suddenly, ‘I have been shifted to the middle sitting. I did not know until I came to the eating hut. So I thought I might as well bathe. I was glad to see you here.’

‘It is . . . very nice in here,’ I said, taking my cue from her and keeping my response flat and rather dull. At the same time, I could not see how enthusiastic speech would be a cause for concern. But perhaps the general repressions of Habitat were so insidiously pervasive that they had led naturally to the flattening and dulling of communication. We bade one another a good day rather stiffly, and I went out to see if Tash was waiting, but she had vanished. I was sorry even though I had to go to the first sitting in any case. I resolved to eat as fast as I could, and slip away quickly in the hope of evading any summons to the weaving hut. I would then wait until mid morning and go to the Hub.

Outside, the sun shone with a brightness that seemed almost shocking after the warm dimness of the bathing hut, and I realised the glass must diffuse or dim the light somehow. The path was busy with people walking towards the eating hut, and I joined the flow. Inside I went to get my food while my eyes adjusted. When I finally glanced about, there was no Dameon, no Swallow and no Dragon. Perhaps they had all been assigned to different sittings, too. It did not matter, since I had exchanged what little information there had been to exchange with Ana already and she could let the others know using signal speech whenever she encountered them during the day.