The Red Queen (8 page)

‘Have no fear,’ Dameon murmured, a smile in his voice. ‘Tasha’s lesson is not unpleasant.’

Not unpleasant at all, I thought, as the small strong hands moved down to my legs. Not exactly pleasant either, for those fingers found places that made me wince and wince again. But there were a certainty in them that came of knowledge and as my body began to feel loose and heavy, my mind began to surrender, too. Perhaps he had been waiting for it, for all at once, Dameon began to speak of Habitat in his beautiful cultured lowland voice.

Another lesson, I thought, and tried to pay attention.

‘This temporary hut was assigned to you by the Committee. It is where all the resurrected live to begin with, save babies and very small children. You will remain here until you are judged fit to take up your duties as a good Speci. Then you will be assigned a two-person hut, or you can request an empty hut and ask someone to share it with you. That can be a person of either sex, but you cannot cohabit without seeking the approval of the Committee to make a blood offering to God. If a child is born of the union, it will remain with you and your cohabitant until it is five years old, then it will be transferred to the childhouse. A baby or child that is resurrected is given to a couple chosen by the Committee to care for as if it were their own, until it turns five, then it will go to the childhouse, too. Tasha was just such a child.’ He paused a moment, perhaps expecting me to speak, but in truth I did not know what to say. Obviously Habitat society was complex, but I had no intention of remaining in it long enough to need more than a superficial knowledge. Dameon must know that my entire focus would be on getting out of Habitat, so why was he giving me so much detail? Was it for Tasha’s sake, because he could not talk about escape in her presence, or was it merely to while away time as the girl performed her ministrations? Or was it for the sake of the machine monitoring me, assuming it was still doing so? There was no way to tell in the darkness and I could not think of a way to ask innocently.

‘Will you help me to turn her?’ Tasha asked Dameon, and between them, they shifted me onto my belly. Despite the fact that he could not see me, I was embarrassed at being handled by Dameon when I was almost naked. Feeling his shields strengthen, I realised he felt my mortification and sought to spare me and I told myself not to be such a ninnyhammer.

The Speci girl began to massage my back with a good deal more force than she had so far used and I groaned when she pressed down on my spine hard enough to elicit a loud crack.

‘When a child is nearing puberty,’ Dameon continued with relentless calmness, ‘they move from the childhouse to the communal boy or girlhouse and remain there until adulthood, when they can move into a two-person hut with another, or request to live with someone else who is amenable. They – we – can live with whomever we like, but the rules about who we can cohabit with are strictly observed because it is a matter of Covenant.’

Covenant was the charter the woman Naha had brought to Habitat, I remembered. Obviously it was a list of rules or laws devised by the Tumen, or by the Beforetimers who had set up Pellmar Quadrants, but it must be very explicit if it controlled who could bear children together, and what had Dameon meant by people having to make a blood offering to God?

‘Is it possible to refuse to partner someone who wants you?’ I asked, recalling how I had been ordered to bond with the loutish gatewarden Relward when I had been Henry Druid’s captive. I had been saved from that fate only by escaping.

‘It is unwise to refuse,’ Dameon said tranquilly, but his empathy gave me a distinct nudge of caution, which told me that however irrelevant this lesson seemed, there was something in it that I needed to understand. ‘Aside from our duty as Speci to beget as many healthy children as can be managed, the Committee prefers adults to pair, partly because unpaired adults are more likely to cause disharmony.’

‘The Covenant requires the Speci to breed?’ I asked bluntly, beginning to have an uncomfortable feeling about where this talk might be leading.

‘Like Landfolk, Speci do not breed easily or often, but obviously there is more chance of it if a couple is cohabiting,’ Dameon said, and now I thought that his voice was not quite so calm. ‘The thing is that a match between a Speci born in Habitat and a resurrectee has a higher chance of producing a child.’

‘What are you telling me?’ I demanded, feeling a rush of revulsion at the idea that I might be forced to bond with someone in order to increase the fertility of the Speci! I noticed that Tasha’s hands trembled and wondered why.

Dameon said nothing for a time, perhaps experiencing some emotion from the girl, or merely marshalling his thoughts, but at length he said, ‘Swallow and Ana have asked the Committee if they can make a blood offering to God, so that they may cohabit.’

I was startled to hear this, but given what Dameon had been saying, it made perfect sense for them to pretend to want to cohabit. By this reasoning, it would be wise for Dameon and I to do the same. Was that what Dameon had been leading up to telling me? Surely he would know that I would see the wisdom of such a solution? I did not much like the idea of a blood offering but it could not be life threatening if the couple were capable of cohabiting afterwards.

Then a dismaying thought struck me. What if Dameon had already made some sort of offer to keep Dragon safe? I would be glad of it for Dragon’s sake, but that meant I would be the only resurrectee available to be bonded to a Speci.

‘Light?’ I rasped, suddenly wanting to see the empath’s expression.

‘It is better to expose your eyes to as little light as possible to begin with,’ Dameon said soothingly, and once again I felt a nudge of empathised caution. ‘Eyes are very sensitive to light after resurrection and too much exposure too fast can cause permanent damage. If I were you, I would not worry too much about trying to see anything yet. You will see all there is to be seen soon enough.’

I took his words as a warning and clenched my fists. Realising I had done so easily, I forgot my unease about what Dameon had been saying and tried to flex my feet. To my delight, they responded, though less willingly now that I was thinking about moving them. ‘How long before I can . . . walk?’

‘Technically, you could walk now,’ Dameon assured me. ‘Your muscles are capable of it and indeed the exercise would help you to reconnect more quickly with your body, but your eyes would not tolerate the light.’

‘You could take her out at night, while it is still darkmoon,’ Tasha suggested diffidently.

‘That is true,’ Dameon said so smoothly that I guessed he had anticipated what the girl would say. This implied we were being monitored and since I could feel only two people close by, it must be that I was still being watched by a machine. Or maybe this Tasha was to report to the Committee about her visit.

‘Can I go out now?’ I asked, eagerly.

‘It is very soon after resurrection,’ Dameon said. ‘Tasha, what do you think?’

‘She is moving her hands and feet and her head, and her muscles are surprisingly supple. I think she might manage a short walk and it would help her to regain the use of her body more quickly. That would please the Committee,’ Tasha added.

‘I want to try,’ I said firmly, ‘Can we walk to the Hub? I would like to see where I was . . . resurrected. You could both help me.’

‘No,’ Dameon said quickly, even as Tasha said, ‘That is too far. And it would be better to wait until full dark. I have work assigned to me after supper so you will need to get someone else. Perhaps Ana and Dragon if they are free. The Committee did say all of you should work together to ensure that Elspeth is fully resurrected as soon as possible. If you wish, Dameon, I will speak to them at supper and send them to you.’ She pulled the bedding back over me. ‘You should bandage her eyes just the same, because of the nightlights.’

‘Very well,’ Dameon said, a smile in his voice.

‘I will need clothes,’ I said, but realised she had gone. I waited for Dameon to speak, but he did not. Irritated, I said tightly, ‘Can you at least tell me more about how Habitat looks while we wait.’

‘I can’t, truly,’ Dameon said rather stiffly.

‘Oh Dameon, I am so sorry!’ I cried, mortified. ‘Forgive me, my dear. I was only snarling without thinking. It is just so maddening having to lie here and rely on other people for everything. Tell me whatever you can as we wait.’

‘It is nothing,’ Dameon said lightly, but it was impossible to tell if I had wounded him with my carelessness. No one could hide emotions better than an accomplished empath. But thinking of his blindness made me wonder what the Tumen had made of it. That he had been resurrected meant they must not regard a person blind from birth as being sick. Or perhaps they had no way of measuring such a thing in a sleeper.

‘You mentioned the Hub,’ Dameon said, and his tone told me that we were not able to speak freely, despite the departure of the Speci girl. ‘I can tell you a little about that. It is a round, free-standing building shaped like an upturned bowl and said to be formed from a single great boulder hollowed out and set down by God. It is not hard to believe, for how else should such a massive thing be set down here? The Hub is where the chosen are traditionally resurrected and it has but one door and one window in the roof.’

‘Above the altar,’ I murmured. ‘How are the chosen brought to the Hub?’

‘They are placed there by God,’ Dameon answered.

I blinked at this. Obviously the Tumen brought sleepers to the Hub after removing them from cryopods so this must be accomplished in some way that prevented them being seen by the Speci. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, trying to think how to frame my question so as to enable Dameon to answer it more fully. ‘They just . . . appear there?’

‘The Speci have a saying: God minds God’s business,’ Dameon said. ‘Our business is to strive to deserve our resurrection by being good Speci.’

‘What makes a Speci good?’ I asked.

Dameon shrugged, a soft movement in the darkness. ‘A good Speci is one who observes the Covenant.’

Suppressing irritation, I thought for a little then said, ‘Tell me of the Covenant.’

‘Covenant was a Beforetime term for an agreement with God,’ Dameon said, a wryness in his tone that told me he had felt my irritation. ‘What Naha delivered to Habitat is essentially a list of rules for us to live by until God receives the signal from the govamen to free the Speci when the world is renewed.’

I frowned. I wanted to ask how the govamen were supposed to be able to signal God, and how God was then to release the Speci, but Dameon was speaking again. ‘Swallow says in his dreams of the Beforetime, the D’rekta of the Twentyfamilies used the word
covenant
for the agreement she made with those who left the Red Land with her. Of course his dreams of the time before his resurrection are very confused and there is no way to know what is true and what is false.’ He added this last dismissively, and gave me a jab of empathised caution, making it clear that we must not talk about the past, save as muddled dreams.

Dameon fed me more water and though the empath’s touch would have allowed easy access to his mind, I did not attempt it because his mindshields were rigidly thrown up. Since he had empathised me, I could assume he had no fear that his Talent would be detected, which again suggested that either the machines of the Tumen could not pick up empathy, or I alone was under scrutiny. Either way, I kept my Talent to myself and said as a way of prolonging the conversation, ‘So, God built Habitat?’

‘It is said to have been built by the Tumen at God’s behest,’ Dameon answered carelessly.

‘The . . . the Tumen?’ I echoed, shocked because I had been certain that no one in Habitat but I knew anything about the Tumen. Then I wondered what the Tumen would make of my reticence about them, given they knew very well that I had woken and spoken to the Tumen attending me, and that he had answered my questions freely, telling me things that diverged from Speci beliefs. ‘The Tumen serve God,’ Dameon said, obviously taking my silence for a question.

‘You have seen them?’ I asked.

‘No one sees them though it is said they worked alongside the first Speci in Habitat, shining with God’s grace, but some time before the coming of Naha they ceased to show themselves. It is said they will come again only when it is time for diaspora.’

‘Shining people,’ I murmured, wondering if I had been wrong about the Tumen not being the original occupants of the city – Rheagor’s
efari
. Had I been wrong in thinking them newcomers? Perhaps they were the descendants of the original Tumen.

‘Do not trouble yourself with such matters,’ Dameon said, and though his voice was mild, the empathic prod he gave me was not. ‘You must concentrate on learning the Covenant and understanding how Habitat works, so that when the Committee come to speak with you, you can show yourself willing and able to become a good Speci.’

‘Am I permitted no time to adjust?’ I asked peevishly.

‘A very little time,’ Dameon said. ‘As Swallow mentioned the other day, our resurrections have given rise to disagreements among the Speci, and the Committee are of the opinion that this is a form of disharmony, and may result in our being judged bad Speci.’

I shuddered inwardly, thinking of a man cut to pieces in a field.

‘There is another reason to be accepted as speedily as possible,’ Dameon said. ‘The ease of your transition is like to be taken into account when the Committee decides whether to permit Swallow and Ana to seek the approval of God for their union. There are some who argue against resurrectees being allowed to bond to one another, despite the fact that there is a higher likelihood of them bearing children than a resurrectee matched with a partner born in Habitat. If they are not granted permission, then Ana will have to make a blood offering with the Speci man who asked to cohabit with her.’

‘I don’t understand . . .’ I said.

‘It is simple. Swallow sought the permission of the Committee to cohabit with Ana at the same time as one of the Speci men. She chose Swallow and while the Committee prefers a chosen match to an enforced one, your resurrection has made everyone uneasy and there is a very real possibility that Ana and Swallow will be refused permission to make the blood offering.’