Memory's Exile

by Anna Gaffey

  Carmichael stared at him. “Behold my amazement.”

  “Anyway. Griffin did a paper back, oh, twelve, thirteen years ago about the probable causes of Leech—”

  “A paper?”

  “Yeah, I know. Shocking, a Defense kid with a brain.”

  Carmichael crossed his considerable arms.

  “No offense. So, the Society had invited him to join. It turned out we were interested in some of the same time periods and materials, so we kept in touch. It was sporadic. I don’t know why you can’t find records of it. Then came the serum accident, and the, um, my selective memory took over, and while I didn’t remember everything about him, he was familiar to me. So, yes. He hasn’t been here before. If he’s choosing to visit now, I’m sure it’s for a good reason.”

  The whole speech sounded more flippant when he said it aloud; that was good. No reason to be nervous. And look how his hands had steadied! Jake picked up the mangled forceps again and busied himself with a slow, careful probe of the pebbly rock. “He’s, um, a nice guy.” One of my only friends from Earth, as you so kindly put it. “A good card player, if I remember correctly. The end.”

  “Card player” jarred something loose, and for a moment his brain felt right in a way it rarely did anymore, dispassionate and clear. A stark memory of sitting outside an underground Dome lab flashed into his head. Con sat nearby, dressed in flight blues, his dark head in his hands. There was a forgotten pile of cards next to his leg, a vivid mess of white beside the blue. Or perhaps they were note cards? He’d been talking about flying. He was there (where?) for—testing, some kind of tests—

  —motor reflexes, his mind suggested automatically, and Jake felt the onset of a tiny headache at the base of his skull.

  Carmichael was talking again. Why hadn’t Jake locked the damn lab doors? He tried to catch the thread.

  “…and you never thought he could be a plant? Dropped on you by someone in Science or Defense who wants to keep an eye on you? Make sure your memory is really wiped?”

  “Do you know anyone more paranoid than me?” Jake rubbed the back of his neck, and the ache lessened. “Sure. For all I know, I met him once, wrote a couple texts, and the rest is all suggestion and implication and smoke and mirrors. He might be a plant. And if he is, he’ll be incredibly disappointed. There’s nothing to find.”

  “Seven, eight years at least, Jake. That’s a long time. That’s dedicated.”

  “Or it’s friendship.” Right. Just another thing to tell myself late at night. Thank you, Carmichael. “Stranger things have happened. My memories go back to at least ’30, okay?”

  A faint snort told him what Carmichael thought of that. Jake scowled. “Like I said. We keep in touch.”

  “Like pen pals?” Carmichael’s lips were twitching now.

  “Yeah, just like that. Go do some pushups or dry-fire your bazooka, why don’t you? And why are you asking me for the rundown, anyway?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Con’s former military, too. He signed up when he turned fourteen. He was a Defense pilot for at least ten years before he resigned and got his early retiree commission, and I’m dead certain you knew that before you came to see me.”

  “I don’t know how to break this to you, Doctor, but Defense is a pretty big place.”

  “No shit. But he posted on Furbad Station for a bit, right after the Defense takeover and during my…trials and tribulations. You were on Furbad, too, in the 20s and 30s.”

  Carmichael was silent for a long moment. Hah, thought Jake.

  “Connor Griffin.” Carmichael pronounced the name as if it tasted strange. “If that’s true, I would remember.”

  “Hey, we’re all getting older.” Jake focused the scope on a mineral ribbon of deep red and used the forceps to scratch out a generous gash. “Happens to the best of the best of us.”

  “Except you, right?”

  Jake smirked. “You know me. I just get better and clearer with every day.”

  Carmichael steepled his fingers against his chin. “You haven’t told me anything. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “Toby, I don’t have anything to tell that you don’t already know. He’s a friend, that’s all. It’s just possible, isn’t it, that I actually have a couple?”

  “We-ell.” Carmichael shrugged. Jake scowled.

  “He’s also here now and you just met him. Why don’t you give him the interrogation?”

  Carmichael shook his head. “No. I think I’ll just pull his dossier.”

  “Ah. Very socially civilized.”

  “Glad you think so. Bottom line, Jake. He doesn’t have to be wound up in a giant evil plot. He could be something like, say, an Internal Auditor. Lots of former Defense work for IA these days, and lots of them have intergalactic pen pals they like to visit. Oh, just for a friendly weekend, of course. Just in time to see how we handle a crew changeover with limited staff and a surprise case of space flu. All with an extravagant amount of shipping traffic.”

  So Carmichael had noticed it, too. Of course he had. He was Stationmaster. For all his adherence to procedure, Earth still wouldn’t necessarily notify them about potential audits or increased traffic. It was the same way in the Domes, in general. The Gov Board and other Powers That Be (Dome muni boards, for one) claimed the right to protect sensitive info, but in reality they wanted to release it in a slow, controlled trickle down through the grapevine. None of the United Worlds division directors avowed or denied anything, but they let it squeak out like tiny farts in a crowd.

  Carmichael rubbed his dark brow, and his big hand came away shining in the soft blue light.

  Heaving-vomiting-sweating misery, Jake thought. “Don’t tell me you’re coming down with it.”

  “No. No, of course not.” But Carmichael stared at his fingers. “Well. Some bizarre dreams, but that’s standard operating procedure here. Got any germ killer?”

  “Right.” Jake opened in the table drawer and dug through the sterile containers until he came up with a little case of disinfectant pads. He tossed it to Carmichael, and reached back through the containment. It prickled gently at his arms.

  “So what do you say?”

  “To what, exactly?” Jake focused back in on the fragment of rock. Strange. He couldn’t see where he’d scraped his sample. It was as if the rock face had filled in, or possibly regenerated. Interesting. More likely, his eyes were getting tired. He’d have to lock it down again under the strongest containment when he was finished, in case Kai sneaked up during the third shift…

  Carmichael cleared his throat.

  “Hm?” Jake looked up. “Oh.”

  Carmichael quirked his silvery eyebrows, and Jake was uncomfortably reminded of Santos. “Take a break, and let’s go to the party.”

  The words were casual, but the tone told Jake it wasn’t a request.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “They’re bringing out the verdict now. In my opinion, this looks bad. I fear they’re going to play safe, drop somewhere in the middle, attempting to conciliate both the victims and the scientific community, and in doing so satisfy neither. The mediator is reading the verdict now and readying her announcement…one moment. Guilty! Did you get that? It’s guilty. He’s guilty. The dead have spoken.”

  Excerpt: newscast coverage of verdict

  09 September 2232

  United Worlds Commonwealth v. Jeong

  4th Circuit United Worlds International Court

  Western Hemisphere Dome 0048 SP

  Earth, Sol System

  [Archived: United Governance Board regional justice systems, Earth]

  31 October 2242 AEC

  22:48

  Delta Lift decided to glitch out between levels, so they climbed up the access shaft and took Alpha the rest of the way down to Level 6. Jake’s legs were leaden as they marched down the corridor toward the general mess. Then Carmichael threw open the double doors, and the sound and sociability blew over them like fresh air.

 
The place was completely transformed. Nat was a fiend for Earth’s old holidays calendar, and she’d made sure she observed All Hallows Eve as properly and comprehensively as she’d observed Queen’s Day, Valborg, St. Stephen’s Day, Women’s Day, Men’s Day, Role-free Day, Liberation Day, Saturmithmas, and Ramadan, which was to say, as best as she knew how with a limited selective budget and too much research. She’d put up orange and black streamers and uploaded jerky old horror films to play on the wall viewscreens. The med lab’s antique model skeleton hung in a far corner. Someone had attached an orange streamer to its crumbling pelvic area. Jake wondered what Nat would make of that—or if she hadn’t done it herself.

  A string of globular halogen pocket-lights looped through the ceiling supports. The pumpkins had thawed into stiff messily carved orange jack-o’-lanterns. They perched on chairs and in alcoves, linked with more loops of glowing halogen light. Tables lined the wall closest to the door, their surfaces stacked haphazardly with piles of wrapped food, lidded drinks, and sterilized paper-lined trays. It was a feast: boxed milk and juice, plates of crackers, bowls of cheeses and rice rolls and steaming, flash-frozen-thawed packets of actual fruits and vegetables. There were loaves of quick-bake bread and baskets of biscuits wrapped in hot foil, and at the very end, a huge bubbling vat of bean and beef chili. Sadly, Jake did not see any fresh pineapple left amid the carnage of the fruit plate.

  The freshly deconned newts had clearly lost most of their pre-contractual jitters. Most seemed older than he’d expected. They milled around aimlessly, clinking bottles, passing trays of sweets, jostling and joshing each other. Nearby, a group of disheveled, singularly tone-deaf types (likely to be the new hydroponics techs, in Jake’s experience) swayed to the musical stylings of a mediocre mandolin player, her fingers strumming inaudibly under the noise of people. The floor was littered with paper cups and plates and other trash, the air loaded with smoky, meaty and sickly-sweet smells.

  Carmichael had already disappeared into the crush of strange faces. Probably he’d gone to find Santos. Jake pushed through the mob until he reached the groaning tables, and, stomach growling, loaded up a tray. There didn’t seem to be any unoccupied chairs or tables, so he made for the wall and set the food down on a pile of empty rations crates. He wondered if Dr. Silverman was somewhere in the crowd. She was red-haired and slight, but he didn’t remember much else about her.

  He was scanning the throng for a red head when someone bumped him from behind. Jake turned to see a round-cheeked crewman dressed in stiff new decon-damp station greys with the nametag A. BOUVIER, lugging an open box containing a jumble of dark green wine bottles. The glass clanked dully.

  “Sorry?” The kid grinned at Jake and offered the box. He had the youngest face in the room.

  “Not a problem.” He took a bottle and watched the kid lurch away. What the hells, it wasn’t as if Jake was on the dry list. He could kick back. The station’s safeguards were pretty slick. If the system identified alcohol in a thumb swipe, it ran a cross-check on all on-call crewmembers. Any crewmember not on the roster would be automatically locked out by Heart, particularly if they tried to access higher station functions. Some people claimed the sobriety check was as glitchy as the rest of the station. Santos swore that a couple of the stronger topical disinfectants confused the thumbprint scanners. And Mick had once gotten locked inside his quarters. Of course, that was after he got belligerent on two bottles of imported head-cratering ale and kept pressing away at the thumbplate to watch the door open and close. In short: the system seemed to work just fine.

  Jake uncapped the bottle and took a long swig. A sharp honeyed heat rolled down his throat and made his eyes water. Not quite wine, then. It did help against the urge to flail back up to the labs, though.

  “Catching up?”

  Connor Griffin, pilot of the Leah Harmon, ex-Defense commander and card-carrying smartass, set his tray down next to Jake’s on the crate. He’d piled his plates high with steaming hot chili, cornbread, chips, runty little carrots, and some other unrecognizable hors d’oeuvres. His face was thinner and more lined than it had looked six months ago via vid, but then, it was always odd to see him. In Jake’s mind, he was mostly composed of words and written inflection, or inflection Jake imposed unbidden on the words. His hair was as thick and dark as ever, though, his eyes still green and sardonic. He wore the regulation UW blue pilot shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Jake immediately recalled his entire conversation with Carmichael and his own thoughts beforehand. Friends? Colleagues? Passing acquaintances? Lovers? At the last, his chest tightened. He looked into Con’s warm gaze and felt horribly phony. How could he participate in a relationship when he was unable to lose the doubts he had about himself and about Con?

  Instead, he focused on the cool glass of the bottle neck under his fingers and remembered he was supposed to talk now, to say Nice to see you or Hey buddy or something similarly ice-breaking. Like starting out a letter with some kind of blasé greeting.

  “You look terrible.” No. No good, Jake. Not awkward at all. “In a good way,” he amended.

  But Con’s face split into a wide grin. He grabbed Jake and hugged him tight.

  “Yes, hello,” Jake said into Con’s shirt. He could do this. Hugging was good, reasonable, normal. Better than normal, despite the scrawniness of Con’s shoulders and the acrid, medicinal smells of decon and cryo. His Connor Griffin of words dried up and disappeared in favor of the solid flesh under his hands. It felt nice. Comfortable. Safe.

  And hard on the heels of relief came stomach-knotting anxiety. Was he hugging too long? He patted at Con’s shoulder and pulled back, and Con released him immediately. “It’s great to see you.”

  “Been too long,” Con said. He lounged back against the crate, close enough so they didn’t have to shout.

  “Absolutely, certainly, yes.” Jake crossed his arms and tried to keep from smiling too much. Nat must’ve been messing with the environmental controls, because the room felt suddenly chilly. Perhaps he’d go bonkers presently; he felt a little crazed. At least he’d somehow managed to keep a grip on his bottle. He took another swig and wiped his mouth. “What do you think of our new recruits?”

  “Nothing special. Sorry.” Con scratched the back of his head. “All real eager. But the route was easy. I’ve never had such a quiet trip out. It felt downright…oh, what’s the word. Serendipitous.”

  Serendipitous. Not a word you usually heard twice in one day. Jake cleared his throat. Maybe he was coming down with the flu despite the inoc and frenetic boosting. “What’s new on Earth?”

  “Oh, well, Earth.”

  They talked about nothing for a while. “Nothing” encompassed Dome-on-Dome politics and social wars, new research on viruses from Earth surface samples, the latest pulp scanned over the History circular, the interests of United Worlds Science versus United Worlds Defense, and other old arguments. Talking about Defense made Jake abruptly, shamefully interested in specifics. What was the etiquette for hey, I don’t remember, or maybe you never told me, did you quit the space ape patrol, or did they kick you out? He tried to trace back to the last time Con had talked about his job, or the military, or anything regarding his past exploits as a shuttle commander. Most of their conversations Jake could remember word for word, even the monitored comms he’d got in the Bends, and he still couldn’t recall. Clearly he was a stellar friend.

  At least he could remember the first time they’d met. It was at a Historical Society meeting in a mock-up of a railroad baron mansion on Summit Hill, old Saint Paul, in 2230. The locals had brought out the works: dark mahogany tables, velvet curtains, a fireplace with roaring fire, gilt mantelpiece, and cunningly crackled art reproductions. One of the usual authorities had been dragging on and on about the buried tunnels beneath the Dome and how some still went unused even in this day and age of Dome life. Jake didn’t remember much of what he and Con had talked about or why, only that somehow they had fallen to whispering rude puns during the presentatio
n. When the lecture got too dry and the booze too strong to bear, Con had come up with the bright idea of exploring the so-called buried tunnels right then. They’d slipped out of the room, and, from there, down into the basement of the house and through one of the forgotten access panels into dark, deserted passageways.

  Jake had had a flask of the district moonshine burning into his hand. Con had been swiping through a scan of the unofficial Saint Paul labyrinth guide and giggling at the graphic, poorly configured drawings of safety hazards. He had pointed with a dusty finger at the freight elevator shaft, and another at the corroded, crumbling hole in the wall above them. Jake had his watch and his brain cells and the heavy silver buckle on his belt, and Con had found a length of rope in a maintenance closet. They climbed up and dropped down and groped through the dank tunnels with only a lab penlight for illumination.

  Looking back, it seemed fantastically stupid. Who knew what contagions were still lurking in the remains? They could have caught anything, breathed anything. They could’ve run into scavengers or hermits host to a thousand different ailments that no Dome-dwelling herd immunity could counter. In a moment of drunken clarity, Jake had voiced these concerns. Con scoffed at him.

  “They wouldn’t stick around to mess with us.”

  He didn’t think to ask how Con knew that, although he pondered the memory at length later in his Bends cell, deep underground and far away from Saint Paul, labyrinths, and moonshine. At the time it was merely exhilarating.