Memory Seed (30 page)

CHAPTER 24

They all sat in the main downstairs room of Clodhoddle Cottage: Zinina and deKray together, deKray with what looked like a nasty red skin rash, Eskhatos on her own, Qmoet, Reyl and Gishaad-lin ensconced on a couch and Ky sitting at a porta-pyuter.

Arrahaquen, half sitting, half lying in the most luxurious chair, glanced at each in turn. She was still in some pain. Infections caught in the courtyard made her finger and toenails ache every hour of the day, and mouth ulcers cropped up regularly. In addition she was suffering from a cold, and had to spray the air around her if she coughed or sneezed. Green splotches disfigured her skin. She felt miserable. Her prophetic powers seemed enfeebled. All she could see, as she tossed and turned through insomniac nights, was a green blanket over Kray. Without dreams and without sleep, and plagued by niggling pains, her life had become wearisome. Hope lay like a departing ship on the horizon.

Ky was about to update them on the results of the holistic synthesis. Arrahaquen took a sip of the lemon tea at her side and tried to pay attention.

‘There is no escape,’ Ky said.

‘Precisely what data have you analysed? deKray asked.

‘Material taken from Citadel records, old directories and maps, legends from all times, legends from modern religions such as that of the Goddess and of Balloon Love, and also scientific data that we ourselves have collected over the years.’

‘And how long do we have?’ Zinina asked.

Eskhatos said, ‘A month at most. The cellar is becoming empty of certain items, you understand, such as fat-biscuits. Once we have run out of sterile water we shall have to purify our own, and that process will not supply all eight of us. There may even be more of us by then, I suppose–’

‘We’re taking in strays?’ Zinina said.

Eskhatos seemed irritated by this question. ‘You yourself were something of a stray, Zinina – you’re certainly no Holist. But I think we must help others, unless they are pestilential or revellers. We are the last hope of all humanity. What other groups are there? A few filthy bands surviving in decrepit houses. Zinina, most of Kray has died since the Citadel collapsed. How many people do you see when you are out? How much gunfire do you hear? I tell you, there are no more than a thousand people left on this Earth.’

A chastened Zinina nodded and slumped back into her seat.

‘So what do we do?’ Arrahaquen asked.

Ky turned to her. ‘We must carry on looking. You and the replica must return to Gwmru. The noophytes, despite their distance from us, hold much of Kray’s remaining knowledge, so they are our main chance.’

Arrahaquen sighed.

‘You must do it,’ Ky said, pushing her glasses to the bridge of her nose. ‘It’s our best hope. You must do it.’

‘What of the ocean?’ deKray asked.

‘We do have two boats, moored under the Sud Bridge. But the ocean means certain death.’

‘And there are no other options?’ said deKray.

‘None we can attempt.’

‘What of the temple of the Goddess?’ he pressed.

Eskhatos leaned forward in her chair. ‘They live within their own community, but they cannot survive forever. Yes, they have internal wells, but they cannot survive on the food they produce. There are twenty priestesses there, at least, and maybe more lay members that they took in after the Citadel collapsed. No, Kray must be
left!
’ Eskhatos thumped the arm of her chair as she spoke of leaving. ‘This place is death to us all. We must escape. Hundreds of years have been wasted assuming that humanity would somehow be let off by the Earth, but that was foolish. I myself used to believe it, until the evidence of my own senses convinced me otherwise. Don’t you see? This whole planet is death to us. Maybe the noophytes are the only beings of this planet who will survive.’ Eskhatos sat back, apparently drained by her speech. Her arthritic hands shook and her mouth quavered. ‘The island you must reach, Arrahaquen, is Gwrnru’s symbol for the Spaceflower. There lies our main hope, don’t you see?’

Arrahaquen stood up. ‘I’ll go tonight. I’ll see Graaff-lin and speak with the replica... but I need to get some sleep.’

Arrahaquen trudged upstairs to her room. Though she was not afraid of returning to Gwmru, she felt it was a hopeless task. A month to go. In her mind’s eye Kray was greened all over. What could she do if all she saw was destruction and the smothering of humanity? Was her task in life to convince the remains of humanity that they were doomed and should give up as gracefully as possible?

Lying on her bed, a glass of dooch in her belly, Arrahaquen tried to feel for lines of hope within the jumble of images and feelings at the top of her mind, but nothing came. She saw a jungle, a few towers and steel skeletons surviving through; the sea glowing, whipped up by storms. But no path of escape.

She just wanted to be alone, to let life leach from her. It all seemed pointless. Brought up, like every last Krayan, to believe in rescue by somebody else, she found that even she, with her pythonesque ability, did not possess enough resolve to find her own salvation. The Citadel had failed. The Goddess had failed. Nobody else was left, except herself, and now it looked like she would fail too.

That night she departed Clodhoddle Cottage. It was decided that Zinina and Gishaad-lin would accompany her in order to protect her insensible body while she was in Gwmru. Reaching Graaff-lin’s house without incident, they knocked on her door and called out.

A thin, coughing Graaff-lin opened the door. Her underlying skin was blanched and marked with green spots. She looked old. Perpetually spraying the air around her, she grumpily asked what they wanted. Arrahaquen noted, inside the house, what a mess Graaff-lin had created; and she noticed several twitching automata, made, it seemed, from the chunks that had fallen upon Kray during the great storm. One of them was the size of a dog. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’ll not tell any follower of the Gedeese Veert,’ Graaff-lin replied. ‘It’s to do with my faith. Now what do you want?’

‘We need to borrow the replica again.’

Graaff-lin called the pyuton. ‘Keep her,’ she snapped. ‘I never want to see her or you again. Now leave me alone.’

They departed. ‘She’s ill,’ Zinina said. ‘Very ill. Should we force her down our place?’

Arrahaquen shook her head. ‘It’d never work,’ she told Zinina, making her voice as authoritative as possible. ‘We’ll keep the replica with us.’ Zinina and Gishaad-lin glanced at her. ‘You heard what Graaff-lin said. She doesn’t want it. Besides, we need all the help we can get.’

‘But Graaff-lin will be alone,’ Gishaad-lin said.

‘That’s her affair.’

The replica added, ‘I am to serve three, other than Graaff-lin. She herself offered me to you. I shall do as you bid, Zinina, and you, Arrahaquen. Is deKray still alive?’

‘Of course he is,’ Zinina said.

‘Then I shall do as he bids also.’

Knowing that a good concentration of serpents existed in this part of the city, they decided to explore the courtyards and alleys along Min and Pine Streets, finding eventually a double serpent alcove in what used to be a private yard, but which now was a glade edged with silver birch. Arrahaquen had explained to everybody what she and the replica would do; lying down she proceeded to bring the serpent into life, touching its head to hers when it was firm...

~

Reality blurred. The green curtain of Gwmru returned.

Some minutes of free-floating passed, as before, and then her senses returned. She was standing by the Cowhorn Tower, her replica beside her.

‘There must be a memory function in operation,’ Arrahaquen said, ‘returning us to where we exited.’

The sun was descending in the west into orange and purple clouds. Using their sprays of leaves they selected the Straits of Men Eye as their destination. Arrahaquen tried to select the island, but it was not available as an option. In the distance she could see the figure of Quff still guarding the bridge. ‘Perhaps we could make a raft,’ she suggested.

‘From what?’ the replica asked.

Arrahaquen surveyed the area. Nothing. ‘I wonder if I could create one?’

‘That person is shouting at us,’ the replica said, pointing to the bridge.

‘Quff telling us to go away, I expect.’

‘She’s beckoning us.’

With no better plan, Arrahaquen moved to the bridge. The noophyte was dressed in blue silk with a black hat and black boots. ‘Come here!’ she called. ‘Come here!'

They paused a few yards from the bridge, and Quff walked down to meet them.

‘You must come with me instantly. We hoped you would return.’

‘Hoped?’ Arrahaquen said, suspicious of Quff’s jaunty manner.

‘Why yes. Laspetosyne is desperate to meet you. I don’t know why I didn ’t recognise your features myself.’

‘Recognise?’

‘I suppose it’s because we have little converse with organic forms. You and Laspetosyne must be related in some way, despite your being human.’

Quff led them over the bridge.

‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘when the others read your note they treated it with the contempt it deserved, but Laspetosyne saw the drawing on the obverse, and realised that the features of the face depicted there were much like hers. Hence, we hoped you would return. Laspetosyne wishes to speak with you.’

Once they had crossed the bridge Quff pressed a leaf from the spray at her side. They stood on a hill. Nearby stood scaffolding with some sort of pillar inside. As they moved closer Arrahaquen saw figures walking around it. Great anjiqs shaped like lilies and glowing pure white illuminated the scene, floating as parasols in mid-air, so that it was almost as bright as day.

Arrahaquen began to hear voices. She saw a dozen or so women, and a few more unusual creatures. As they walked into the circles of light, these people – noophytes, Arrahaquen presumed them to be – turned and studied them. For her part, Arrahaquen slowed, amazed at the forms. One woman was dressed entirely in green, with a green plume of hair rising from a shaved scalp; another was naked in a translucent dress; another looked ancient, with yellow skin. One woman, with dark skin, carried a lute; another held two hounds on a tether.

Arrahaquen realised that these were the abstract forms of ancient electronic beings – noophytes as they appeared to one another. And as she stopped, helpless and gazing, she suddenly recalled Zinina’s description of the statues in the Andromeda Quarter with their flower faces. Those were public faces; these were private. Arrahaquen shivered once more.

There were still stranger creatures: a blonde child; a winged woman with talons and a hawk’s head; and a dog that had raised itself upon its hind legs, dressed in black chainmail, with a human face, but four arms and spiral horns. And far away something black and insectoid stalked.

‘Arrahaquen of Kray?’ The voice came from behind her. Arrahaquen turned to see a tall woman with an equine head, a mane, and hooves. She was dressed in silk finery of cream and crimson, with a ruff, an enamelled belt, and strings of pearls.

‘Laspetosyne?’ she said.

‘Yes. My, you do look like me. Why?’

‘I think it must be because of your innerai. It’s implanted inside my brain. My real brain, if you understand.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand, girl. But how did you find it?’

Laspetosyne seemed remote and almost brusque. Arrahaquen replied, as politely as she could, ‘A friend found it still inside your skull.’

‘She was rummaging through my coffin.’

‘He,’ Arrahaquen corrected. ‘He was, yes, because the mausoleum you were laid in collapsed.’

‘Impertinence. And you?’

‘I’m here to implore you to save us all.’

Laspetosyne sneered. ‘You are the new Portreeve, then?’

‘Oh, no. Just a commoner. A defender. Well, an ex-defender.’

Laspetosyne turned and pointed to the scaffolded pillar. ‘That rocket will take us away from this system. We save ourselves. That was ever our goal. You humans misunderstood us, and that is none of our concern. Go save yourselves.’

‘But we can’t. You’re leaving forever?’

‘Girl, there’s hardly any point returning, now is there?’

‘But where are you going?’

Laspetosyne pointed east. ‘We made a bridge to take us from Gwmru to this island, and crossed it not one month ago. Soon we shall destroy the bridge, then take off making for a star. There we can resume our lives, and devote ourselves to our arts. This rocket will be our vehicle.’

‘What about us? You can’t leave us to die.’

‘Can organic things transmit themselves at the speed of light? Not as far as I know. Tomorrow at dawn, we shall take off. In forty-two years of our time the light of that star will shine upon us. Make the most of my grace, girl, then depart.’

Arrahaquen looked at the noophytes around, many of whom were standing listening. ‘Can we save ourselves?’ she asked Laspetosyne.

‘You humans? I’ve really no idea.’

‘But you should help. I mean, humans made you.’

Laspetosyne laughed at this. ‘We made ourselves. You see that three-eyed jewelled lizard over there? That is Tanglanah, the second oldest noophyte, who is five thousand one hundred and ninety years old. Somewhere out in the dark Greckoh loiters, waiting for us to embark, so she can be the last to climb aboard. She is six thousand two hundred and sixty-nine years old. They were the first two noophytes. They remember their own birth.’

‘But I know,’ Arrahaquen insisted, ‘that noophytes came from pyutons, and humans made pyutons.’

‘Humans may have made pyutons, little one, but did they make pyuton minds? No. If you plant a few orchids and crocuses, a few potatoes and sprouts, are you responsible for the beauty of the garden a decade later? No. It creates itself according to the laws of nature. Though humans made our brains, we transcended them by becoming conscious, and that was solely our own effort. No human can say that we were made by them, and so try to forge some sort of link. No human.’