The Red Queen (6 page)

‘I asked why
I
should have been saved and not my friends,’ Swallow went on. ‘They told me that perhaps God
had
saved my friends, and if so, they too would eventually be resurrected in Habitat. They could not say when, though they did say that in recent generations almost all of the resurrected had been children or babies.

‘You can imagine my relief when Ana came, and of course we both hoped that meant the rest of you had been taken . . . ah, chosen as well. I was bidden explain life in Habitat to Ana, just as it had been explained to me, and I obeyed. The Speci were fascinated that we knew one another, but when Dragon and Dameon arrived, and it was clear that we all knew one another, it unsettled the Speci badly. Some of the younger Speci see it as a sign that the time of the diaspora is near, but the Committee of Elders regards it as some sort of testing of the Speci’s faith and obedience.’

‘Could . . . not have slept years . . .’ I rasped.

‘I felt the same,’ Swallow said quickly. ‘When I insisted the world beyond the walls of Habitat was not an endless Blackland, the Speci merely reminded me that the resurrected are often confused. They always believe they have not slept long. To begin with, I did not believe them and spent all of my spare time trying to work out how to escape Habitat. I had no idea who had taken us prisoner, but I was damned sure we were prisoners and I knew it was not the Speci who had taken me captive. For all their talk of being chosen by God, they were as much captives as we were. I thought there must be a group of people outside Habitat who had captured us and were keeping us prisoners. The trouble is that if there were generations of Speci, then there must be generations of captors, and what possible use could anyone have for keeping another group of people prisoners for so long?’

Despite my shock at discovering how long the others had been in Habitat, it struck me all at once that none of the others knew anything about the Tumen because they had not awakened from cryosleep before being put into Habitat.

‘I resolved to learn who our captors were,’ Swallow continued, as if sensing my interest – indeed he could probably
see
it in my aura. ‘The Speci are very passive and peaceable, and had done me no harm, so I resolved to share the truth about Habitat and their keepers, with them, when I discovered what it was. I believed my thoughts and plans were well concealed until one day a member of the Committee told me bluntly that if I persisted in wrongful thinking, it meant I was not a good Speci, and I would be judged so and punished.’

‘He . . . threatened you?’ I croaked.

‘It was a she and she was warning me,’ Swallow said. ‘I did not take her warning well. In truth I was shocked by their acuity. I asked rather belligerently what the Committee would do if I refused to believe what the rest of them believed. She assured me that no Speci would dishonour themselves with violence, for the Covenant forbids one Speci harming another. It was
God
who would punish me. I was not overly worried until one day a while later the horribly mutilated body of a man was found in the crops and I was told that God had punished him for being a bad Speci. From the glimpse I got of his body, it looked more like he had been cut to pieces by a dagger-wielding maniac than cold-bloodedly executed. I had less sympathy for him when I learned that he had raped a woman.’

‘One of the Speci must have killed him,’ I rasped, unable to equate such a killing with my tranquil Tumen attendant.

‘No Speci would harm another,’ Swallow said pointedly, reminding me to guard my tongue. He went on, ‘The man was killed during a thanksgiving ceremony conducted on the darkest night of darkmoon. This is when God traditionally strikes down bad Speci. I was weak from my resurrection during the first thanksgiving celebration, so I did not attend, then Ana arrived just before the second darkmoon, so I was with her when the man was killed. Ana and I attended the third thanksgiving, while Dragon remained with Dameon, who was newly awake. The ceremony involved copious amounts of a hellishly potent ferment brewed especially for the occasion. One mug and I had trouble standing, let alone walking, and I was a good deal less affected than the Speci who never touch a fermented drop save for during the thanksgiving celebrations – that, by the way, is also when bondings are celebrated,’ he added rather irrelevantly.

‘In short, all of the Speci would have staggered to their beds and slept like stones till dawn on the night the man was murdered,’ Dameon said. ‘And I, too, can vouch for the strength of the ferment they drink. No one taking a mug would have been physically capable of murder let alone –’

Dragon urged Swallow to tell me of ‘the sisters’.

I heard him sigh. ‘One day about a week after murder,’ he said, ‘I was assigned to a field crew when an older Speci began rattling on about some resurrected ancestor of his who had woken in the Hub seventeen years after her twin sister had been resurrected. The long-sleeping sister had some foul sickness that God had to heal before she was safe to enter Habitat. He said the sister was astounded to wake and find her twin almost two decades older.’

‘Older?’ I echoed, uncomprehending.

Dameon spoke then, his words measured, but all the while he emanated caution so strongly that it made my head ache. ‘The story told to Swallow, and which he later told us, made it clear that those chosen do not age while they sleep in God’s care.
No matter how long that is.
That is how a woman resurrected seventeen years after her twin could waken to find herself seventeen years younger than her sister, though to her, it seemed as if only hours or a few days had passed.’

‘She slept without ageing for seventeen years!’ Dragon reiterated, a combination of wonderment and horror in her voice. ‘It means
we
could have done the same and not know it.’

‘I do not know how a person could not age and yet heal, but the old Speci who told the story about the two sisters believed it,’ Swallow said. ‘Of course, this happened generations ago in the very early days of Habitat, and maybe some details of the tale have been left out. But given that each of us woke without any sense of more than a day or so having passed, we came to believe the Speci were right and the world we knew is long gone.’

For a brief, dizzying moment I wondered if it was possible that we
had
slept for generations. Then I remembered my dream conversation with Astyanax. The Agyllian had warned that I would fail in my quest only if I allowed the cryopod to take me again, and I had not done that. Astyanax had also confirmed that I would have to defeat the Destroyer in order to fulfil my quest, which meant Ariel must be alive. So the very longest I could have slept was fifty years or so. That I might have lain unconscious for fifty years was a frightening thought, especially as it would mean Rushton would be an old man if he lived, but it was not so terrible as having slept for hundreds of years like the maid in Miky and Angina’s empath song.

‘No . . .’ I began, then a wash of caution so strong as to verge on coercivity stopped my mouth, and Dameon squeezed my hand once, hard, then released it.

‘I understand your disbelief, Elspeth,’ Dameon said. ‘We all felt it to begin with, but like the rest of us, in time, you will come to see that the Speci have the right of it, and the world we remember is only a mishmash of what once was and is no more. Then you will rejoice as we have done, knowing you were chosen by God. Until you attain understanding, however, it is best not to dwell on your life before you were resurrected. What matters is that you adapt quickly to life in Habitat, for as Swallow said, so many of us being resurrected close together has disturbed the harmony of Habitat. That is of great concern to the Speci because it is a requirement of Covenant that the Speci live in harmony. Many Speci fear that too much disharmony will lead to God punishing all in Habitat, not just those judged to be bad Speci.’

He had ceased to empathise when he released my hand, but I thought of the body found mutilated in a field and understood that I had been warned to pretend to believe what I had been told. And given what Swallow had said about the woman who warned him, I had better pretend well.

I would do what needed doing, yet I knew more than my companions and, it seemed, more than the Speci, because I knew that it was the Tumen who had put us into Habitat. Oddly, the beliefs of the Tumen did not differ overmuch from those of the Speci, given what the others had told me. True, the Tumen believed their purpose was to collect and preserve the Speci and acquire information from them, while the Speci thought they were God’s attempt to preserve humanity, but those goals were not incompatible, and both groups believed those within Habitat would be freed once God decided it was time, though the Tumen believed that would happen only when the govamen contacted God. I had no idea why the Tumen had brought God into things, but it did explain why, knowing the world was not an uninhabited wasteland, the Tumen nevertheless continued to keep the Speci captive – the govamen had not sent a message to release them. As to why the Tumen did not reveal themselves to the Speci, that was obvious – their existence would give the lie to the Speci’s belief that the world beyond Habitat was uninhabitable.

‘You should know that the Committee has charged all of us with your instruction, in order that you attain enlightenment speedily,’ Dameon said.

I felt a surge of impatience but I merely nodded, knowing I would have to trust that the others would do their utmost to contrive a way for us to communicate. ‘I will . . . think on what you have said,’ I croaked meekly, at last. There was a profound little silence in which I imagined the others darting glances at one another, then Dameon squeezed my hand, emanating gentle approval. ‘Tell me . . . about the Committee.’

‘It is made up of twelve of the eldest Speci,’ Swallow said, sounding relieved. ‘With God’s guidance, they decide things that affect the whole Habitat community, assign workers as needed and ensure a fair division of labour. When you are able to move about and speak properly, they will come to make sure you understand what it means to be a good Speci, then you will be permitted to pledge yourself to the Covenant and that will make you a proper good Speci. All of us have done it. In the meantime, nothing is expected of you but that you concentrate on getting well. When you can walk, we are to help you familiarise yourself with Habitat and explain how things work here. Then when you are strong enough, you will be given work to do.’

‘Do not be afraid,’ Ana said, in a hard, bright voice that suggested exactly the opposite. ‘God requires only that you open your mind. The truth will fall into you like light into a dark room.’

I said nothing, startled by her ability to spout what was surely Speci dogma with convincing passion. If I had not known her, I might have believed she had been converted. But I did know her. I knew that her ability to pretend was a survival skill she had learned in childhood.

Reasoning it a permissible question from one so newly awakened, and determined to get what information I could, I asked, ‘Do any of you remember . . . being chosen?’

‘None of us remembers anything,’ Swallow said flatly enough that I found myself believing he spoke no more than the bald truth. ‘One minute we were hunkered down in a sandstorm the Speci say was part of the end of the world, the next I woke in the Hub with no idea of how I had got there or what had happened to the rest of you.’

‘It was the same for me,’ Analivia said, ‘except when I woke I had Swallow to explain things to me. We hoped the rest of you would be resurrected, and when Dragon came, we were sure of it. I told her how things were and she did the same for Dameon when he came. Traditionally, the last resurrected instructs the newly resurrected, though that was not possible when Swallow woke, because the last resurrected was still too young. So the Committee appointed an adult to explain what was needful for him to know.’

‘Do the Speci know why most of the resurrected in recent times have been children?’ This was not something the Tumen had spoken of and truly I could not imagine how they could have found children and babies in the catchment zone. Unless they had already been in Pellmar Quadrants in cryopods, but if so, who had put them there and why?

‘It is not for the Speci to know the will of God,’ Ana said piously. ‘We do know that in the beginning, all Speci resurrected in Habitat were healthy, fertile adults in the prime of life. But there were many deaths in the early days because of maladjustments and confusions. The Speci were endangered by their memories of how things had been before the world fell. It was hard for them to accept the perfection that was Habitat. They kept wanting to do things in ways that belonged to a world that no longer existed. One after another died and ever more Speci had to be resurrected to ensure the numbers in Habitat remained stable. Then came a time when, though Speci continued to die, none were resurrected. As the numbers in Habitat dropped lower and lower, the Speci that remained began to fear that God had abandoned them. That was when Naha came – she whom the Speci call God’s daughter. She appeared in the Hub like any other resurrectee, but when she woke, she was neither stiff nor confused. It transpired that she knew everything about Habitat and the Speci. She said that she had been sent with a Covenant they must all pledge to obey if they wished to know God’s purpose. Once all Speci had pledged, Naha told them the world they remembered was gone – it had been swallowed by fire and poison and that they alone lived because God had created Habitat and resurrected them to live in it until the world cleansed itself. The Speci then pledged to live by the Covenant Naha had brought, and soon after, new Speci began to be resurrected, but now, most were babies or infants. Naha said this was because adults carried too many memories of the old dead world, which caused them to struggle to adapt to life in Habitat. The few adults resurrected thereafter often went the way of the early Speci, but those resurrected as children or babies did well and those born in Habitat thrived, though they were few.’

‘I think it is the fact that we are all grown, save Dragon, that most troubles the Speci,’ Swallow put in. ‘That we know one another only adds to their unease. They fear we will cause disharmony, which is why we strive constantly to be good Speci.’