Janus (32 page)

Faces would swirl around her. After they had gone, she was able to identify them, wonder what they had said. Jessamyn with her friend, staring and frowning. Or had that been later, after she had bumped into Dr. Henry? Literally. Almost knocked them both down, him into the arms of the blonde beside him. She remembered apologising to him, and then talking for so long that Carlo got uncomfortable and left and came back with more drinks. Which perhaps was not the greatest idea in the world, because it was then that the faces started eddying past her and blurring, and she couldn’t remember what she’d said to Henry or when he had left.

Some time later she was outside, with the divided moonlight freezing onto her face, and Carlo was becoming aggressively friendly. She tried holding him at arm’s length, then pushed him away impatiently. When he tried again, she lost her temper and told him she’d find her own way home. There was an unpleasant scene that afterwards she could remember little of. In the middle of it, Carlo had shouted something like “You’re not supposed to have met, you’re not supposed to be interested any more.”

Crazy drunken evening
, she thought. Only when she was climbing the slope to her home and she remembered she was alone and unarmed did her mind start to clear. Then the pain in Carlo’s face started to haunt her, and his last words.

“You’re what I made.” Had he really said that, or was it just part of the drunken chaos slopping about in her mind? “I tried to prevent all this, and you won’t even let me show you the truth!” He had been staggering away from her, or she had been lurching out of his reach, and the streetlight had glistened on his face. He looked haunted.

Snapshots
, she thought;
the mind playing games
. Already the memory, if was a memory, was sharpening, changing focus as she examined it. Had he been reaching for her hand then, or had she added that to the picture herself? She couldn’t tell how drunk he had been, either. She could ask him what he had meant, but only if he had really said it, or believed he had said it.

Crazy, crazy evening. She felt lucky to have reached her front door without anything worse happening. The lights buffeted her when her hand slid onto the switch, and she moaned and turned them off again. She groped her way to the bed and dived gratefully into oblivion.

Grebbel worked on the terminal in the lab, waiting until Osmon finished checking out the atomic-absorption spectrometer. He searched the database for the delivery schedules and payload capacities of both the shuttles and the dirigibles, and tried to estimate the amount of hardware in orbit. Finally Osmon disconnected his circuit probes and moved towards the door, and Grebbel called him over.

“I’ve been talking to some of the others,” he began. “But I need someone I can trust. I think we have enough in common to be able to understand each other.”

“Indeed,” said Osmon. “Are you referring to private interests that go unfulfilled, or something larger?”

“Both. But mainly freedom. In the past, a hundred men, properly equipped, have been able to overthrow an empire. What do you think a dozen men—perhaps two dozen—properly organised, could do here?”

“Do you think there are two dozen of
us
ready to take such risks?”

“I think if a dozen of us got ourselves established, we could gather enough others to support a change in regime.”

Osmon looked at him. “Getting established, though . . .”

“It will mean violence, of course.”

“Not necessarily,” Osmon said.

“What are you thinking of?”

“Something in the organisation of this settlement strikes a discord in my ears. That most unfortunate young woman who was found in the woods—she was not the first to be missing. And the way the matter was treated . . . There were accidents in the caves when the turbine rooms were first being opened up, and no effort was spared to find the missing. I believe that these investigations were stifled by someone in authority. If we knew who it was . . .”

“We might create an unwilling ally,” Grebbel finished. “But is there time?”

“We set our own schedule, don’t we?”

“Of course,” said Grebbel, but his fists clenched and opened, then squeezed until the knuckles were white.

Elinda slumped onto the hard chair beside Barbara’s bed. Barbara lay on her side, facing away from her, apparently dozing, but her breathing was fast and light. Her hair, thick and long and dark brown, that Elinda had sometimes spent half an evening combing and braiding, hung tangled over her face, hiding her eyes. Elinda reached out, carefully, tentatively and smoothed it back. She wondered how long it had been since she had touched her former lover.

I’ve betrayed you
, she did not say aloud.
I’ve left you in here and found . . . someone.

She whispered: “I didn’t mean to abandon you. I won’t abandon you.”

He’s like us, he’s lost his memories. But it’s hurting him; it’s hurting us both. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

“I’m trying to finish what you were doing. I’m trying but it’s hard. Was it about our memories? We went—he and I—we went to the caves and we found Erika’s body. Was that part of what you were looking for too, whatever sent her there? I don’t understand what I’m doing, what it is I’m trying to find.”

Barbara, why couldn’t you have trusted me with any of this?

“Pal’ce,” Barbara mumbled. “Do, do. Go, ’member.”

Oh, why didn’t you let me in then? Why can’t you show me what’s going on inside you?

Grebbel found Elinda in the Greenhouse, supervising the harvest of soya beans. “No shortage of volunteers,” he commented, “even this late in the day. Does everyone work like this for the communal good?”

She looked at him. “There’s a duty roster. Your name will come up soon enough. But, yes, several of them are volunteers. What are you looking for?”

“I’m always curious about things like group solidarity and the room for individual goals.”

“This is only a social call, then.” Just public enough to prevent another blowup. Very shrewd. “Except that I don’t believe it. What do you want?”

He drew a breath. “I didn’t want to leave things the way they were after last time. No, you’re right, that’s not the only reason I came, but it is one reason. Please believe me.”

“All right,” she said carefully. “Go on.”

“I was wondering if you had made any more progress in finding out what had happened to Barbara. I still might be able to help.” He paraphrased Osmon’s comments, without saying who had made them.

“I’d already guessed somebody was pulling strings,” she said. “But it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who might be paranoid. No, I’m no further on, and I’m in no position to turn down help. Whatever the reason it’s offered.”

That evening she had invited Louise and Paulina in for dinner, and for the first part of the evening managed to engross herself with the business of slicing vegetables and cleaning the two-kilogram carp she had squandered her coupons on. She would have to live on fish stew for the rest of the week, but at least that would be better than the late-night snacks she too often resorted to.

Louise and Paulina still seemed warily solicitous, which made her wonder what sort of signals she was sending out. Over dinner, she realised she was babbling, while her two guests sat and watched her. Suddenly she ran out of energy, and there was an uneasy silence until Louise started talking about the latest political developments back on Earth. Elinda found it hard to generate any interest. Even when the conversation shifted to a new batch of satellite photos of the land to the south of the Flats, she felt remote from the discussion. Finally Paulina asked, “Have you been to see Barbara lately?” and Elinda felt the world close on her again with a snap.

“She isn’t changing. I can hear her talking sometimes, but she’s still not there with me, she’s talking in her sleep, dreaming. . . . I should go and see her again.”

Louise and Paulina exchanged looks, and Louise said, “Maybe you should worry about her less. You’re putting yourself under a lot of strain. It’s very good of you to be loyal, but if there’s nothing you can do—”

“She’s not dead. She’s trapped in a dream. Maybe I can wake her. If not . . .” She fell silent, frowning.

“What, Elinda?”

“Maybe there’s a way to get into the dream with her.”

A chain of creatures like great slow birds flew high across the twin moons. Each pair of wings glinted silver for an instant as it moved out of silhouette, then was lost against the sky.

Jon Grebbel’s divided shadows strode ahead of him as he made his way to Hut Seven. Osmon was waiting when he arrived, and the others drifted in one by one: Lafayette, Shelling, Hendriks, even Karl Winter, having abandoned his telescope for the evening. They were all early, but Grebbel waited until the appointed time before starting to speak.

“Thank you all for being punctual,” he began, “and for being patient until I was ready to start. I appreciate that sort of consideration. It shows good social adjustment, and I admire that. Patience, especially—and I know how patient you all are. It takes a particular strength of will, it takes real courage, to continue to live your lives, and know all the time you’re living a fake.” He paused briefly. They were watching him with guarded interest.