That degree of quickening—soulgiving, the elder cultures call it—is death for the quickener. No one knows why, any more than they know why we sleep or why we dream; there are as many theories as there are sophists. No one even knows precisely how, any more than they know precisely how it is that we think at all. Consciousness and memory are hotly debated topics within the sophistries. But it seems to me that there’s more to this than neurotransmitters and electrochemical copying, or quickening wouldn’t kill you. There’s some sort of transfer of spirit, of soul, something profoundly more than mere brain chemistry. . . .
Why did Tollis quicken me? It meant that that experience of torture and bereavement and rage would live on for at least one more generation. Was it ego, or sacrifice, or cowardice? Did Tollis feel it was preferable to continue suffering than go into oblivion? Did Tollis shy away from selfdeath when the void roared, and grab panicked, desperate hold of neural immortality? Or did Tollis courageously agree to live on with trauma rather than end a line of predecessors?
Allowing puberty to thaw the memories in me, and passing them on in turn, could be consigning Tollis to eternal damnation.
Denying the hormone surge of puberty could be wiping out millennia of ancestors.
I don’t know how many predecessors there were. How many were quickened by those who’d been quickened by those who’d been quickened before them. Everyone who knew Tollis, who could have answered my questions, is gone. By choosing suppression, it could be that I’d destroy only two of us—myself and Tollis— and one of those deaths a mercy to a tortured soul.
There is only one way to find out, and there is no way back from it. The only way to find out if something will break is to break it. The only way to know the future is to go there.
And so I sit here on a bench in sight of the entrance of a clinic that can excise these ghosts from me permanently, and make no move to cross that threshold.
Memory-murder. Killing the mind or minds I host. There’s no way to pass them along unsampled. There’s no way to give them to someone else to hold. If I die without passing them on, they die, too. And I will die without passing them on if I walk through that entry-way, because it will burn out the parts of my brain where the ghosts lie dormant. Someday, perhaps, there will be better therapy, temporary suppression, denial of integration; perhaps someday you’ll be able to let the ghosts wake, get acquainted, and then decide if you like living with them or not; perhaps someday you’ll even have the choice of storing predecessors and passing them on to the next child undamaged while you yourself forgo the next life for restful oblivion.
But not now. For now, it’s all or nothing. I must jeopardize my identity by allowing an unknown number of strangers—one of whom I know for a fact has experienced unspeakable horror—free reign in my head, or I must silence them all permanently, whoever they are, however many of them there are.
Bearers live one life and then they die. If they can bear that, why can’t I? What gives me the right to impose myself on the next generation?
I know now why I’m writing this. Because I had decided not to go in to the center. Because I couldn’t take the risk of committing murder. Because I had decided to go home, and let nature take its course, and let the neurohumors wash over me and float me away into whatever half-life I am destined for. I wanted to keep some record of my own voice before it merged into the voices of the ages. I’m still me, right now. Just me. Nethon, alone, on the cusp of adulthood, unpolluted by adult hormones or adult memories. I just wanted to be me for a little longer before I gave up and turned for home.
But I’m not willing to give up. I’m not willing to give up my self. Maybe it is murder. But if it is, it’s in self-defense.
I am under siege, and I have a right to protect myself.
I’m going in.
Yes. In the end, I went in. And I saved these tablets—I’m not sure why, but most likely for the same reason that I saved my predecessors: because every echo and reflection of thought and identity is precious, however fragmentary, and in whatever form; and because change comes when and where we least expect it. In a clinic chair. On a trolley platform.
I stepped over the threshold of the suppression center and saw a neurosophist and told my story, much as I told it to these tablets. And, just as at the end of these tablets there was a little room left to write, which I use now, at the end of my interview there was a little room left for the sophist to comment. A little space of time and consciousness as I laid my arm out to be shaved and used my claws to lever the dermal plates apart to admit the injection. Just enough space for the sophist, leaning in to administer the neuro-phage, to say, “Wasn’t Elindela Tollis Noranthora killed by anti-neurosuppression extremists?”
No. But Tollis’ family was. And that memory is worse than my worst fears. But having Tollis’ conviction and courage to draw on is more wondrous than my sweetest dreams. And Tollis is only one of the precious many who share this lifetime with me.
I let the armor plating close on my flesh before the injection could go in. I snatched the arm back and ran. My memory may be degrading after all these years, but as I recall, I ran all the way home.
If I was relieved at the choice I made, I will never know whether it was because there were so very many spirits collected in Tollis and I had avoided by the thinnest wisp of chance becoming a mass murderer, or because my dearest Melen was right, and our fore-spirits have their own survival imperative, just as our forebears did. The survival instinct of consciousness is no less potent than the genetic imperatives of flesh.
Unlike my adolescent self, however, I do know who I am writing this for, and why.
You bear Melen’s genes, not mine. Your body, your reactions, your speed, your physical proclivities will be Melen’s. That is a glorious thing. It would be a poorer world without Melen’s verve, Melen’s keen eyes, Melen’s kind heart. I love Melen deeply. And just as I suspect that the minds stored within a quickener have fundamental urges and requirements and defenses, I suspect that flesh has its own personality. Soul is as much a thing of flesh as of mind. In that, as in so many things, you are the child of us both equally. I cherish that. I celebrate that.
But I must warn you. Melen was ever contrary and rebellious. Risk-taking, stubbornness, hardheaded opinionated determination—these are your genetic legacy. Combine them with what you will get from me, and I have no doubt that you will find yourself on that same threshold one day. Or one very like it.
I am not begging for my life, or the life of those who came before me, those who nest in me as I nest, thus far unfelt, in you as you read this. My life will end when I quicken you. Other philosophies hold differently, but that is my belief, beloved child-to-come: Tollisdela Nethon Arimthora will leave this world the moment I waken the consciousness of Nethondela Tollfs Melenthora. I don’t mind. I don’t resent you for it. Were there no irresistible biological imperative built into my flesh, had I the choice to ignore the sonic and pheromonal triggers Melen will emit when you tear through the pouch, still I would quicken you, even knowing it was my death. You are our future. I grieve only that I will not have the joys of your fleshgiver: the joy of sleeping with you tucked in my arms; the joy of watching you grow into yourself, your unique and precious self.
I do not beg for you to quicken me in turn. I do not beg for you to turn from that entryway or deny that injection. You are blessed to live in a nation grown in freedom. You are blessed to have the choice of that threshold. The decision is entirely yours, and I do not write this to you, my child, in hope of playing upon your sympathy and manipulating you into permitting the thaw of memory should you prefer complete independence.
I write this to free you from the onus of it. I write this that you might know me, and us. Should you choose to allow me, and Tollis, and all our predecessors entre into your mind, should you choose to share your life with ours, you will have made that choice with an understanding of precisely who you are letting into your head. You need not accept us blindly. Squeez
e the palm heart before you buy it, to be sure its center is not rotten. Kick the tires of the vehicle, check the teeth of the draftbeast. Squeeze and kick and check and question, question, question.
And if you choose, for whatever reason, to suppress us, to keep us frozen, to pour lime into our nest under the floorboards of your mind, you will still have some sense of who we were.
Of who I am.
Go on now, and be you—not me, not us. Encumbered by neither ignorance nor guilt.
How can I love you so, without knowing you, never having smelled you, touched you, seen you?
And yet, somehow, I do.
Remember us to the future, my child. However you can, however you choose.
Remember me.
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NOBODIES by Adrienne Gormley
I
LIMP INTO MY old village of Green Hollow, wincing at the cold as my left rear foot drags through the snow. I duck behind the houses and search for the food pile, the one the Real People are to leave so that we Nobodies may eat. I do not find it, not here, not there, and I fret. How will I survive Testing so I can become a Real Person again if I do not eat? There are too many Nobodies about, and I am merely one of them.
As I slip between the houses, I think back to when I lived here as a child and could run and play among the other Real People. Alas, I am no longer a child. I do not have a name, I do not have a gender, I do not legally exist. Nor will I until I become an adult, if I live long enough to be accepted as one. Then I wince from the hunger that gnaws at me and I return to concentrate on looking for the food.
I catch my bad foot on a snow-covered clod and stumble. I recover, despite my hunger-induced dizziness. I move into a clump of ornamental bushes, where I know my hairless, mottled Nobody hide will blend into the shadows.
As I settle in the shadows, my nose twitches. Mmm, dried fruit. Meat. I lift my head and sniff again, then move toward the scent, grasping at branches to keep myself upright.
I pass several homes before I stop again. I flare my nostrils, questing for the scent of the food, and I find it. Now I know where to find the food. For some reason, it is behind the home of the Chief Family. I do not know why it is in a private area, as such food leavings are supposed to be public. I hunch down, making sure my forefeet are firmly placed, and think. My memories tell me that the Chief Family is not due to leave food for the Nobodies again for some time, so why they have food out now is a puzzle.
At times, I am not sure it is worth the effort to search out the food scraps. Usually I hunt or fish, but there is my injury, and it is so cold. I know the law requires that I travel alone, and yet I mourn. I don’t believe any of my clutch mates are still alive.
The bone-deep ache in my left rear foot nags at me as I approach the food cache. I worry about what I might find there besides food. I stoop down once I am behind the Chief Family’s house, afraid some Real People might see me. Even when I was still a child, I was never welcome here. Now that I am a Nobody, it is worth my life to be seen.
I hear ragged breathing and look around for the source. Then I realize; it’s me. I try to stifle the sound.
I circle the yard slowly, trying to pinpoint the food cache. The smell hits me and I home in on an open bag, not far from the back gate, well away from the stables that house the Chief Family’s farm animals.
Food! What does it matter if some of it is stale and dry? I do not care about the quality; I care only that the food exists, and that I can eat.
I rotate my ears to listen as I chew, and hear my second stomach complain that it has not had anything in too long. Too many sun cycles passed, it tells me. I snatch at the items on the top of the pile, watching, one eye turret turned to the yard, another pointed toward the food cache. I have to take what I need before other Nobodies show up to claim a share. I fret, because I know I am weak. I clasp what I can in my hands, glad I at least have all three fingers on each, Having only three of my four feet working right is problem enough.
I crawl into the shade of a nearby bush, hoping that I am still invisible. The mottled skin pattern from my birth clan is an asset I appreciate. As I chew on another bite, I keep watch for any who might challenge me for what I have taken.
Food. Glorious food. I feel blessed to have found a store of food that is not rotting. I take in the aroma, and I have to fight to keep from gorging. I settle down on my haunches, forelegs tucked under me, as the ache gnawing at my second stomach eases. I find that I have a bit left over, which I wrap and tuck into a small carry sack, one I made at the beginning of my Test from the hides of some rockhoppers.
To my left, I hear the scratch of claw on stone and turn a wary eye to watch. When I see the source of the noise, I tense. I have suffered too much at the hands of the Nobody who is approaching, even when we were both still children and Real People. The other’s long nose is twitching as it approaches the food cache, and I see its muscles rippling. The other, who always bullied the rest of us, was born into the Chief Family and may return to its birth family if it survives. The bully moves without pausing to where the food pile is. I can tell from the way it moves so confidently, the way it sniffs about, that it already knows the food would be there. The bully does not travel as one who is looking, or one who feels a Nobody’s need to hide.
I tense as I realize the bully knows the food is waiting. Then my spirit hurts, as I become aware that the Chief Family has secretly left out food for- this former child, hoping to violate the laws of the Test. How can we become true adults if we don’t have to strive for adulthood? Is the law there to be ignored?
Such favoritism is a violation of everything I ever learned, where all Nobodies are to share any food left out, and all food that is left out is to be in public areas. I am not surprised that some families would want to secretly help their Nobody young. Every family wishes to continue. I am shocked to find the Chief Family doing this; they are supposed to be moral arbiters of Green Hollow.
I stuff everything I haven’t yet eaten into my carry sack. I hope it is enough to see me through until I can find something else. I hold the sack close to my bare hide, and make my escape.
Not soon enough. I limp to the edge of the village, not pausing for anything, not even when the bully trots after me, shrieking in public.
“Thief! Cripple! That was my food!”
Wrong. Wrong. The food is for all Nobodies, and we are to remain unseen, but I do not say that aloud. Besides, I have left more than enough food behind to see the bully through a famine. How selfish can one be and still hope to become a Real Person?
The thaw has come and I still limp a little, but I have managed to make it this far. The woods around me are bursting with growth and the sun is warm on my back. I can still feel my bones rattle against each other, but at least there are fleshy buds and shoots I can chew. I also know a small pool at the base of a short cascade where there are plenty of silverscale fingerlings who do not know how to avoid a net made of reeds.
There is still some snow on the ground in the shady places, but I know how to avoid them as I climb into hidden hollows. I have no idea what I will find there except shelter, or maybe a sleeping rockhopper. Then, when I settle down into the lee of one overhanging rock face, I find that there is a patch of odd fungus growing there. There is no gain without risk, I tell myself, so I pry several off their rocks and carry them away.
As I sit, leaning against the rock wall, I stretch out my legs. I see my adult hair is growing, in odd patches. I relax; my Test will soon be over. I will succeed or fail, and if I fail, I can only live wild or die. That, I know after my hungry winter, is a good reason to study any potential food source. The Real People of Green Hollow have little enough to eat as is.
I reach out a hand and touch a patch of hair on my leg. I need to know that it is real. I touch it again, and feel a tingle of anticipation thrill through my body. So soft, much softer than I remember my mother’s being. Could this be the new adult hair, and it only grows coarse with age?
I see that I have inherited my father’s pale amber color. My hair gleams in the afternoon sun. What is interesting is the silver patch that grows on my left rear leg, above my old injury.
I take out some of the fungus I found. I lift it to my nose and smell. My eyes sting and I swivel them away. I blink; the smell is pungent. I wonder what will happen if I cook them?
I crawl farther back into the lee of the rock, where I start a fire with some dried brush and the leavings of a deserted windwalker nest. I spear a fungus onto a stick and hold it over my small flame, and wait as I let the heat work its magic. Soon the scent of the fungus changes, and I feel my stomachs demanding I eat it now. The scent is, what is the word—savory— and it is all I can do to keep from eating it whole. Instead, I take a small bite and roll it around my tongue so I can enjoy the flavor before I swallow it.
I sit and wait, afraid that what I have eaten will turn on me, ripping my first stomach to shreds, making me bleed out my fife here in the rocks. Instead, my first stomach ceases its complaints, so I take another bite, then another, and before I know what is happening, I am snapping at the end of the stick on which I roasted the fungus. I want more, so I take another few pieces out of my pouch and roast them, and eat them until I can eat no more. I look around my rock shelter for more, but I see only a few very small growths in a hidden nook.
I decide to leave them to grow, but I also plan to look for more of this fungus in other rocky places over the next few moons. I want to keep myself well fed on them until I can get back down to the pool where I have my fingerling nets. And maybe, later, I can gather spores to take back with me.
I relax as I settle down by the pool, and I bask in the warmth of high summer. The sunlight is as dappled as my formerly bare hide once it threads its way through the leaves to the ground. Around me, in the brush, I hear the sounds of the small creatures that indicate the forest has grown used to my presence.
I, Alien Page 21
