The innocent had died.
“I thought they were banned from Plexis,” I whispered, avoiding mental touch. Unlikely, that these could sense the deep link between Chosen, but I’d take no chances. In my experience, the creatures loathed mindcrawlers, having some rudimentary sensitivity of their own.
“Plexis couldn’t make it stick,” Morgan replied. “Easy, chit. Remember the Turrneds. Not all Scats are pirates. These two are merchants.”
He’d killed Roraqk using his own considerable mental strength. Had saved me. We’d come so far since—
Yet I still saw that terrifying fanged snout in my dreams. Still heard that chittering laugh. Still knew what it was to be powerless.
I feared I always would.
Memory
by Sally McLennan
“IR!” FIRST MOTHER calls louder than is necessary in the confines of our home, the storeroom. Her name is Ama, she’s my favorite mother, and this is how she objects to the plas crate walls I’ve used to form a room for my personal use.
I am Ir, and I am an aberration.
With my smaller pair of arms, I shove hair away from my eyes and, reluctantly, leave my studies. “Yes. I’m coming, Mother.”
I keep my tone humble. My mothers won’t endure cheek. But she needn’t have summoned me. It’s late night on Plexis, and my preferred time for work in our family shop, Glamor. I’ve set up a subtle alert, a mere vibration of my wrist com, to tell me it’s my shift. Ama knows of the alert, though, and it distresses her. It distresses all my mothers.
Glamor, on Level 15 of the upper concourse of Plexis, is home and workplace to all twenty-seven members of my mesh. We’re from the planet, but not the city, Auord.
Ever wondered why Auord’s capital has no name that separates it from the planet on which it’s found? Why its best-known inhabitants call themselves Auordians? The damp, rubbish-packed capital is the only land-based city of the planet Auord. Auord city is, consequently the location of the spaceport, and most of the interstellar trade on Auord, too.
Or so it was until spacers discovered the unique talents of my species. Moradhi live beyond the grime of the continent over the great oceans of Auord. There our mothers string lines between the tall rock pillars we call spires. Businesses operate in rooms hollowed out of spires. The elaborate tangles of thread between spires are homes woven by the mothers of each family, or mesh.
What separates us from other species isn’t the second pair of arms with which we cling or climb—while hands not engaged in that necessary pursuit are busy with other things—nor is it the wings that grace our mothers. What makes male Moradhi special is that we remember everything but recall little beyond the fundamentals of our lives.
I understand sophisticated mathematics but don’t recall being taught it. I recognize friends but don’t know what we did three days ago. Individual events cannot be recalled by a male Moradhi at will. We live in the present tense. It takes our mothers to unlock our minds. Or it used to.
Hastily, I check my uniform. I step past the back entrance to the shop and join a brother wrapping purchases. On this side of the staff door, Glamor is all mirrors and gilt. The floor is real orstone from Camos. The gleaming shelves display all that a gentle being needs to improve their appearance. Schools of elegantly dressed customers eye one another as they drift through the shop. Near the comfortable chairs at reception, they are handed refreshments while their credits are taken and their costly little purchases packaged.
My hands fly, removing tags, tying ribbons in our signature burgundy and gold. Hours pass, but my mind has no time to wander. I smile at elegant persons and ensure each of my packages is superb. I’m alert to anything unusual even if I don’t remember the events that established what usual is for me. I’m also ready to suggest an additional and complementary purchase, should a sister cue me to. This occupies me until my sister Aby, who is explaining the different grades of bertwee oil to a frizzy-coated Garg, peters into silence. She stares fixedly at the door.
A scraggy-haired Human stands in the door, a spacer. Only her gold airtag and proud bearing have stopped the Regillian guards on the door from ousting her.
“Bold as a sandbat!” Aby mutters. More audibly she calls, “Captain Saunders, an unexpected delight. Please, come through to the back. Issa, would you help Senator Losue with his purchase?” Only family would spot the slight stresses on unexpected and please.
A brother bustles through the staff door and taps my nearest elbow. My mothers have noticed the captain arrive on the security viswall in our storeroom, and I am being summoned. Without a word, she and Aby pass the seated customers, and I follow them into our home. The back room rises to two stories. Of the items we sell, only one or two of each are placed on the shelves. This enhances the appearance of rarity though many are indeed scarce beyond their system of origin.
So, in the storeroom, stacks of plas crates rise to the ceiling in neat towers. Each tower of crates contains the beauty products of a world. Between the worlds thus represented my mothers are at work. Two out of the three of them are weaving lengths of rope near the ceiling. A roving fertile male Moradhi visited a turn ago, and both mothers are heavily pregnant. As they work, creating hammocks and seats, they coat the threads with a complex secretion from their knuckles. Added to the fibers, the lipids and proteins are cues, detailed chemical reminders of the sensations and feelings attached to an otherwise lost moment.
Ama walks to the edge of the platform she is working on and spreads her wings. She drops in short leaps from weaving to weaving, the breeze of her descent cooling my face as she makes a final leap to the ground. “Captain Saunders,” she greets our visitor with a polite smile. “Ir, Captain Saunders has been keeping an eye out for new botanicals for us.”
The reminder galvanizes me. “Do you have something?” I ask the spacer eagerly.
“No, not yet, and my apologies for coming through the front, Ama! I must up fins shortly and I was nearby. I wanted to let you know that on my next run I’m hauling supplies to an outsystem planet, EF178. It’s uninhabited but for a scientist surveying plant life . . .”
“Imagine being the only person on a planet!” I’m already dreaming of going. The words “new botanicals” are an irresistible lure. I use my wrist com to query EF178. The world is far from trade routes and has no mineral resources to entice miners. But there are jungles and rolling plains.
I’m stunned into silence. Ama eyes me fondly. A world of undiscovered botanical riches is the subject of my fondest daydreams. Potential medicines! New products for Glamor! Both figure in my imaginings, but it is the possibility of unique cosmetic goods that excites my mothers. I barely notice Aby’s offer to guide the captain back to her vessel via the service tunnels or their departure.
“Ir,” Ama says softly, her tone inviting me to calm down. Hands touch my shoulders. Obligingly, I settle with my back to Ama. Her fingers touch my temples. I close my eyes and open my mind to her. She explores my memories of the day, checking any I may wish to record. For me, she works to capture in thread the essence of memories I cannot recall at will. So it is, Moradhi sleep in their memories, live in them, and often work in them, too. Mothers weave a million experiences into our homes day by day. What we smell in a moment, feel, taste, or hear, are captured by an echo of the unique balance of chemicals each experience releases in our minds.
If a being wants to record some great secret? Machines can be manipulated, their content altered or destroyed. But a Moradhi witness only recalls when his mother guides him to the appropriate thread to trigger the memory. Till then a witness won’t even know that in his mind lies proof of a rite, or agreement, or decision by a court. A Moradhi male’s memory is exact and unchanging, deep within his mind. This trait has been a curse and blessing to my species, the sums of money offered by temples, courts, corporations, and governmental agencies being enough to lure Moradhi from Auord and establish u
s in businesses across the system.
When Ama has tasted all my memories, she allows me to retreat to my plas crate cubicle, knowing that I will be too distracted to wrap packages tonight.
I search for outsystem contacts who might know the botanist on EF178. My contacts list is rich in scientists. For, inside my cubicle walls, I study botany and chemistry. I’ve been fascinated since my earliest days by the ingredients in our merchandise and alternative uses for each compound therein. I record my findings and keep detailed logs. Like a few other young male Moradhi, I use technological cues for my memories. This upends the Moradhi tradition of living in webs woven from our pasts, and honoring our mothers’ care of us, but I want to live beyond the ropes. My mothers scramble to understand. I just hope to repay their loving patience.
* * *
• • •
A station week later I request annual leave from Glamor and try to allay my family’s concern. My records show I’ve undertaken field trips before. Hom Cates, the lonely botanist, has been introduced to us by fellow scientists and has, reluctantly it seems, agreed to a single brief visit. Aby secures us a berth on the freighter for its return to EF178. We pay a substantial sum to persuade its captain to land instead of dropping supplies from orbit. Moradhi males become incoherent without a mother or sister to support them. Well on the way to seeking an established mesh to mother, or founding a new one with older sisters from other meshes, Aby is amenable to traveling with me despite the basic accommodations of our vessel.
It takes two-and-three-quarter shipdays, in tight confines between plas crates, to reach EF178. We eat our own food and sleep on fold-down bunks. Happily, there is a fresher stall and space for the significant amount of luggage I bear.
The freighter lands smoothly; as soon as the ramp opens, we hustle out, laden with gear. My feet touch earth. I ignore the crew unloading, instead trying to see everything at once, ducking past Aby to stare at the immense trees around the sealed landing area. But my traveling companion is staring in quite another direction. I whirl and stand openmouthed.
On newly cleared land beside the rudimentary launch pad is a house. A single, solitary, one-storied house. An older Human with a dusty look about him stands before it and walks toward us as soon as we have all seen him.
“Captain,” he acknowledges, “Thanks to you for this. Is there a bill of lading? Good. As soon as I’ve checked it, the remaining credits will be in your account. I’m sorry I have no hospitality to offer you. Perhaps by next visit.” He nods at the freighter captain cordially, but his words suggest both the ship and ourselves should depart now.
“Ir, please greet Hom Cates, who is the botanist you have asked to guide us,” Aby whispers to me. “He’s known to be reclusive.”
I put myself forward, hoping Hom Cates will indeed welcome me.
“I’m Ir,” I say politely. In desperation, I depart from the Moradhi norm of absolute truthfulness and forbear to mention my journeyman status. “I’m the botanist you’re expecting. My sister Aby assists me.” I indicate her with a tilt of my head.
His face softens when I mention botany.
“Ir, I’ll guide you for a one-time visit to the jungle. I’m an amateur botanist, albeit a keen one.”
“I’ve the next load waiting on Plexis. No difference to me if they stay here till I’m back.” the freighter captain comments.
Our host pauses as if thinking, and my heart beats hard. But he nods to Captain Saunders in acknowledgment. Then he holds out a hand to me in the typical Human gesture of greeting.
“I’m Cates,” he says, “I appreciate being able to meet people who share my interest.”
I flash Cates a shy smile and wait impatiently until we are alone, gear piled beside us, and the freighter lifting into space. Cates looks uncomfortable when he faces us. His words are almost formal.
“I just need to finish getting some things together. Wait here, please, Fem, Hom.”
When he returns, a light bag on his shoulders and a weapon visible on his hip, he asks: “Are you fit?”
I hesitate, hoping my life of climbing, wrapping parcels, and navigating service corridors translates into some sort of ability to keep up. Cates doubts us, eyeing Aby’s slender frame.
“I’ll go slow,” he says, and I realize Cates is excited to show us his jungle. Stirrings of fellow feeling draw my eyes to his.
“Should we leave so near dusk?” I query. Darkness is, I recorded in my journals, the hardest thing about being away from Plexis. It is never truly dark in the great supermarket.
But Cates smiles. “Night is the best time to see the jungle.” He strides toward the trees, completely ignoring the grav cart of supplies.
We walk in single file. Cates leads, and we labor under our luggage behind him. Our voices quickly fall silent, our breath taken by the size of the trees and the energy needed to navigate around and over buttress-like roots. The air is warm, still, and fragrant. I want to stop. The scale of the trees, their solemn immensity, is balanced by the fluttering and scurrying of small lives around us. I avoid squashing a small reptile dreaming on a mossy pad and nearly obliterate an ornate fungus. Aby’s folded wings collect some lichen. There’s so much to explore, and we are blundering through it.
Cates looks over his shoulder.
“My first night out, I camp in a clearing up ahead. There isn’t another nearby. It has drinking water, and if you want to poke around for a day or two, there’s your best place to do it.”
* * *
• • •
Cates is right. I step around a tree root, and my eye is drawn first to the small patch of sky above, then to the large tent at the center of the clearing. A brook feeds a pool of green water and dribbles away into the maze of roots. The tent roof is formed of solar patches, and a heat box rests inside it. Distorts ring the site; I wonder what wildlife they keep at bay. Ruefully, I set my pack on the ground, much of what I carry now unnecessary.
Cates clasps my shoulder sympathetically. “I’m so sorry. But if we repacked, we’d have never arrived before nightfall,” he explained. “Plus, I want to see your setup for fieldwork, maybe use your ideas to improve my camp.”
That’s all it takes. Aby nods to Cates’ warning to stay in camp, and heads into the tent with her gear, while Cates and I settle to rummage through my pack, right there on the moss. I hear Aby sorting through rations for dinner until she emerges to watch the forest alertly and listen to our conversation. But I don’t really notice. Cates and I speak one language and it is the language of botany. When he talks about seed pods which open by a mechanism he doesn’t yet understand, I am fascinated. I show him my system for collecting samples, and he makes notes. Finally, the great trees draw near as dusk springs upon us and Cates quietens. We have not got up from where we stopped to eat or drink.
“Watch,” is all he says.
Eyes wide, peering into the gloom, I’m initially unsure the soft glow from the jungle is real. But, one by one, blossoms open and brighten, their petals luminescent white, like stars hung on the trees. Barely discernible beneath them, long tendrils drip viscous fluid to invite and ensnare small biters. Aby brings each of us a plate and sits beside us. She makes a low sound of wonder, and Cates smiles. Conversation dies. It’s late before we retire to bedrolls, and in the silence we’ve begun to be friends.
* * *
• • •
Aby waits beside my bedroll when I wake the next day. She is holding two steaming cups of sombay as she smiles reassuringly.
“We’re on a field trip,” she reminds me. “You’re looking for new botanicals, guided by Hom Cates.”
While I drink the sombay, I skim my log from the day before. I can’t dress fast enough, and Cates looks amused by my inclination to skip breakfast to get into the jungle. We spend a glorious day rambling near the campsite, collecting samples of interesting looking plants and sealing them i
n plas for further study. Aby hunts flora with us and we all keep watch for the sources of distant rustlings, barking, and whistles that sound in the jungle. Cates has warned us there is a native predator capable of killing us. We stick together, glad of his weapon, and enjoying the adventure completely.
When my wrist com alerts us that it’s approaching dusk, we retreat to camp. Encouraged by Aby, Cates and I set up field desks, port lights, and scopes. We begin comparing samples.
“The elosia?” Cates, who has hands full sketching a botanical drawing of them, points at the white flowers with his chin, “I’ve synthesized something from its honeydew that has interesting properties. I knew it would be sedating, but it seems to impair telepaths, too.”
My chin drops. Some believe our mothers’ ability to look into their children’s’ memories to be telepathy. But mothers share memories as passive watchers. This limited mental sharing is an inherent part of the Moradhi mother-and-child bond. Sisters grown to near adulthood can support their mothers in caring for young males of their mesh. Outside such a relationship? Sharing thoughts and influencing others’ minds is considered perverse. So, scandalized, I ask Cates “How did you find out?”
Cates face reddens. We are momentarily silent, each discomforted though for different reasons. “By accident. I’d like to run more tests, but I’m not set up yet. I was wondering . . .”
He watches my face intently as he pulls a vial of black liquid from his carrysack. He holds it out, and I barely stop all four hands from reaching at once. “I bet you have what you need on Plexis,” he says, “You could com me your findings. I hope . . . when I got your first message, I hoped that you would. Maybe you can even have some more of this synthesized on Plexis and sent back for me. I’m happy to pay you.” The trust in his words has gravity of its own.
Aby wanders over and hands us each a plate, cutting our conversation short. She fills the silence with questions. “How come you’re alone here, Cates? I like privacy, too, but isn’t this dangerous?”
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 22
