In the Blood (13 page)

I
t was a long way, and seemed even longer, off the standard wanderer routes along the coast, and away from what had been the main routes to the City in the days before floaters, where, by historical or geographic accident, the villages and Utopias that survived the Decline were still mainly located.

At one stage the floater had to detour around a forest—the clear path logged into its databanks had evidently regrown since the information was last updated. Then we reached farmland again—tidy paddocks with even tidier belts of bushland.

‘Well planned,’ said Neil.

I lifted an eyebrow.

‘The bush belts. Good reservoirs for predators. For pest control,’ he added, when he saw I didn’t understand. ‘Helps moisture retention too…’ His voice died away at the expression on my face.

It was late afternoon when we arrived; and for once in the Outlands, my expectations were close to the reality.

This place was shadowed. The sun hung low behind great oak trees, possibly natural, more likely engineered. The house looked old, but not old enough for natural oaks to have grown to that size.

‘Good cover,’ muttered Neil, glancing at them. ‘Thick enough to hide whatever’s happening underneath from satellites, natural enough not to look suspicious. I bet
those trees have been engineered not to lose their leaves in winter either. Hey, look over there.’

I looked. There was a courtyard for floaters, currently empty, a parked trailer and a large sign. ‘Greene Trees,’ it said.

‘Clever,’ I remarked. ‘One little spelling change and the name doesn’t come up in a general search. No wonder you didn’t find anything.’

‘Such an easy enough mistake that no one would be suspicious either,’ said Neil, staring around.

Further out from the house proper were sheds, solar-roofed and with the impenetrable closed-eye look of buildings without windows. Beyond them were paddocks filled with large bobbing birds.

‘Turkeys,’ said Neil. ‘You were right.’

‘In what way?’

‘I bet this place is registered as a turkey farm. Covers any comings and goings and power and equipment needs. Okay, what do we do now? Walk up to the front door and knock like good little investigators, or scout around?’

I shivered. ‘Walk up and knock,’ I said. ‘If this place is what we think it is they may not be very happy with people hiding in the bushes. Anyway, they’ve probably got surveillance. They’ll know we’re here already.’

Unlike the clinic we had just been to, Greene Trees had no neat path to the front door. Instead the way was dappled with fallen, and what looked like indestructible, dead leaves. The grass had made no attempt to colonise the shade between the trees. Small, barely discernible rusty plants gripped for a toehold between raised roots and drifts of leaves.

The front door was shut and in need of paint. ‘Somehow I don’t think this is a knock, yell and enter
sort of place,’ said Neil. There was a button on one side of the door. He pressed it and grinned at me. ‘What’s the betting there’s no answer?’

I shook my head. The place felt deserted. Except for the gabble of the far-off turkeys, there was no sound of any kind. It was as though the giant trees protected the place from any intruding noise.

More silence. Neil lifted his hand to press again and suddenly the door opened with a loud creak.

The woman who stood there was small, in old-fashioned overalls and bright red slippers, with the sort of round pudgy build that metastims had been invented for. I guessed her to be about fifty, rejuved but not cosmeticised; her face showed evidence of decades of sunlight and good eating, and her short hair was streaked with grey. Behind her I could glimpse a long table laden with what looked like mixing bowls, spilt flour and the gleam of a long NewSteel stove.

The woman smiled at us. ‘You took me by surprise,’ she said. ‘What was that dog about, not barking at you? Now are you here for the turkeys or looking for work? Though if it’s the latter I can’t help you much, we’ve all the hands we need. But you’re welcome to stay the night and take the turkey floater.’ She peered through the branches behind us. ‘But you’ve brought your own floater, so you won’t be needing that will you?’ She looked at us expectantly.

‘No, we don’t need a lift,’ I said. ‘We’re not here for turkeys or work either. We’d like to see the doctor.’

She blinked at us. ‘There’s no doctor here.’

‘The MeditTech then?’

She shook her head. ‘No MediTech either, though we could do with one, but none of the young ones want to
train and you can’t force them either. Not that it matters much, as we can take the floater in an emergency, but it’s not quite the same as having your own is it? But what am I doing keeping you standing here? Come in, take the weight off your feet. My name is Meredith, by the way.’

‘Danielle Forester,’ I said.

‘Neil,’ said Neil.

We followed her inside. Her slippers flapped as she walked, showing thick ankles in what looked like hand-knitted red and green socks.

The kitchen was large, and well lit, although the windows were shaded by the trees. It was warm too. Even the chair felt warm when I sat down. The big fuel stove had evidently been on for some time.

‘Well,’ said the woman, looking us over again. ‘Let’s see what I can offer you. It’s too early for dinner and too late for afternoon tea—a snackish sort of time, don’t you think? You must try these.’ She pushed a plate of what looked like small puffs of pastry towards us. ‘Just out of the oven and my own invention, they don’t even have a name yet.’ She looked at us expectantly.

I took a pastry and bit into it. It tasted of cheese and was slightly peppery and there was another flavour I couldn’t quite distinguish. ‘It’s good,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘Everything I cook is good, but it’s nice to have people say so. That’s caraway you’re tasting, in case you’re wondering, and cheese and chilli. Now what would you like to drink? There’s even City whisky if you’d like it—one of the boys brought it back last trip in with the turkeys—but if you follow my advice you’ll have a snapple with your coffee instead. They brew it at
a place further out west. Sweet potatoes and palm sugar, which sounds disgusting I know, but after all, it is distilled.’

‘No, really, nothing,’ I said. ‘Well, maybe just coffee, if it’s not too much trouble. We really must be on our way again.’ I wondered if Meredith was her first name or her last. Mrs Meredith, maybe…I decided to use neither version, just to be sure.

She shot me a glance from her small charcoal eyes as she took the kettle off the stove. ‘You want to find that doctor you thought was here? Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you. You’re not sick I hope?’

‘No, nothing like that,’ I assured her. ‘We just wanted some information.’

‘Better from the horse’s mouth than the Net,’ she agreed, measuring dark grains into a copper pot and adding boiling water. ‘It’s knowing what questions to ask that always gets me…You’ll like the coffee. They grow it up at Kingdom Come. You won’t find me touching any of that hydroponic stuff. I freeze it and roast it and grind it here as we need it. There’s nothing like coffee at its best. There. What do you think?’

I sipped. ‘It’s wonderful,’ I said sincerely.

She beamed at me. ‘I could offer you milk or sugar, but both spoil the flavour for those that appreciate coffee.’ She poured a cup for herself, sat down and took a pastry. ‘You know,’ she added, her mouth still full, ‘it’s a funny thing, but you’re the second lot this month who’ve come here looking for a doctor.’

I glanced at Neil. ‘We must have been given the wrong coordinates,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ She took another bite of pastry, then put it down with square blunt fingers and stared at it thoughtfully.
Her nails were short and clean. ‘A touch more chilli next time, I think. Who gave you the coordinates?’

‘Just someone passing through a place we visited yesterday,’ I said evasively. ‘Did you really make up the recipe for these?’

Another beam that sent her fat cheeks bulging. ‘I did indeed. I do like experimenting. Anyone can follow a recipe, can’t they? But to be able to look at raw materials and say, no, I can do that instead, well, that’s the most satisfying thing of all.’

I smiled at her. I might have said the same of my own work once.

‘It must be a lot of work, cooking for everyone,’ said Neil.

‘Bless you, no. I have all the help I need.’ She glanced at a big old pendulum clock in the corner. ‘Another hour or so and they’ll all be trooping in here,’ she added. ‘You can meet them if you choose to stay.’

‘How many are there?’ asked Neil.

‘Thirteen, not counting Sam, who won’t be back till tomorrow, though if the City floater arrives to pick up the turkeys there’ll probably be someone on it.’ She smiled proudly. ‘Unless the City traders send it on automatic of course, but they say it’s a treat to come out here and taste my cooking, so there’s usually at least one who comes for the ride. Now, tell me a little about yourselves. It’s good to have visitors. We’re so far off the track we rarely get any, except when they come for the turkeys, of course. What was it exactly you wanted to see this doctor about?’

I took another pastry. I was hungry, and besides, it gave me time to think. ‘Like I told you, we just wanted information,’ I said slowly.

She nodded and uncovered a bowl at the edge of the table. ‘A thyme salted almond,’ she said. ‘Try one.’

I bit into the almond. ‘We’re trying to find out what might have happened to a young girl who died at a community called Faith Hope and Charity a few days ago.’

The woman raised grey eyebrows. ‘If you want an autopsy, you’d best try the City,’ she suggested. ‘They’re happy enough to investigate anything that might be a problem. Need to keep their eye out for the next pandemic, not to mention other problems.’

I shook my head slowly. ‘We know how she died. It was blood loss. She…she said that someone had sucked her blood.’

The woman looked at me expressionlessly. ‘And you believed her?’

‘There was no reason to doubt her. She had two cuts, one on her neck and one on her wrist, but they weren’t big enough to account for the blood loss. Besides, she had no reason to lie.’

The woman took another pastry. ‘Delirium. Delusions.’

‘She didn’t seem delusional. Just scared. Terrified. I…I think if you’d seen her you’d have believed her too.’

The woman slowly poured more coffee. ‘So,’ she said. ‘You want a doctor to tell you who—or what—might have sucked the blood of a young girl. I take it you have no suspects in mind?’

‘No. She arrived in a floater. She might have come from anywhere—well, anywhere in a five hundred klom radius anyway.’

‘I see. And you’re aware of the Tuin Case, no doubt. So you are seeking a vampire modification, or a
modification turned vampire. Or perhaps just a psychotic with a taste for blood. That’s possible too, you know, and even more likely. Any popular culture fascination can also be the focus of psychotic obsession.’

‘Any of the three will do as a starting point, Doctor Meredith,’ I said slowly.

‘Just call me Meredith,’ she said smiling. ‘Doctor is so formal, isn’t it?’

‘And so identifying too,’ said Neil.

‘Exactly. What’s the point of being discreet if your clients give the game away with “Doctor”?’

‘So you’ll help us?’ said Neil.

‘Perhaps. If the price is right. More coffee?’

Neil shook his head. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘How much credit do you want?’

She got up and held the copper pot over the sink to rinse it. ‘Oh, I’m not after credit. I really have no need of it. Not any more.’

‘Why not?’ asked Neil bluntly. ‘This place must be expensive to maintain.’

She laughed merrily. ‘You know something? It isn’t at all. Oh, the turkeys were meant to be a cover once upon a time, but really they are quite profitable. The boys could live quite comfortably without me here at all. But that wasn’t what I meant. After so many years, in the business, let’s say, I have more credit than I can ever use—discreetly, at any rate.’ She poured more grains into the pot and smiled at us. ‘If you’re very good, I may even pay
you
. How old do you think I am?’

‘Fifty?’ I hazarded. ‘Sixty perhaps?’

‘I am one hundred and forty six years old. I first qualified when students read books, not Linked with computers, an old expression for Terminals, but of course
you must have come across the term. I imagine your scope was almost unbelievably wide.’

‘You know who I am?’

‘Of course. I do keep up with matters in my field. I moved out here in the Decline—simply a precaution, to isolate my family from the pandemics. But I found the way of life suited me. I have been…shall we say, playing with recipes ever since.’

‘The City knows nothing about you?’

‘What is there to know? I do so very little work nowadays. The City simply knows me as a turkey farmer, and that is mostly what I am.’

‘What do you want from us then?’ asked Neil.

She sat down at the table again. ‘I do hope you’ll stay to dinner,’ she said. ‘I have a roast in the oven. Not turkey—there are many good things you can do with turkey, but not every day. It’s venison, the rump from a nice young hind. I’ve been marinating it for nearly three weeks. Are you sure you won’t have more coffee young man? No?

‘Well then, what do I want from you? The answer is nothing—from you at any rate. From your friend though…’ She smiled at me, a charming friendly smile. ‘A little of your tissue. A very small bit. That’s all. Of course, I could take it without your consent. In fact, you have probably already scattered quite enough skin cells, though they are rarely satisfactory. But just one small incision would be enough.’ Her hand hovered over a bread knife, then retreated to her cup. ‘I’d much rather do it neatly in the lab. Tidier, don’t you think?’

I was silent. Neil looked at me and took my hand. I squeezed it and let it go. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said slowly.

Her eyes gleamed brightly across the table. ‘There was a phrase about the time I did my first degree,’ she said. ‘It was “the bottom line”. A useful phrase, do you know it?’

I nodded.

‘The bottom line is, do you feel your modification is worthwhile? Were they right to Proclaim you inhuman? Or are you more than human and you’d like your line to continue?’