by Julie Sykes
‘Halto!’ I screamed. ‘Don’t hurt him!’
I reached Dan just as the device made contact with his skin. Dan feebly swatted it away. Blue Suit thrust again, but I was right behind him now. I snatched at his hood and yanked it back, exposing a mop of blonde hair and a long, muscular neck. I felt no regret as I slammed my memory device into his skin. Blue Suit twisted to face me and his blue eyes were numb with shock. A shard of ice pierced my heart. I couldn’t breathe. Those eyes, those beautiful bright blue eyes… they belonged to the boy I’d kissed in my dream.
A whispered name floated like a feather inside my head. Faster than snowfall, the memories began to tumble into place. I reached inside my T-shirt and pulled out my amber necklace. The golden, spider’s web chain glittered brightly. The amber stone flamed. The memories came faster. One was stronger than the rest, it replayed in my mind. It was my birthday. I was guest of honour at a special recital. We were in a building similar to the Margaret Becker, only it was bigger and much more beautiful. The concert stage overlooked a series of lakes, descending a hill in watery steps. A boy with blonde hair and sapphire blue eyes sat before a grandatta pianato. His face was full of passion as he played a love song that he’d composed especially for me. ‘Amorra Mi’. My song. He played the music through twice while I listened, along with a small group of family and close friends. As the final note died everyone stood in silent appreciation. My heart swelled with love and pride. The audience blurred as I stepped forward to hug the boy. He held me back as he reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a box. He opened it. An amber necklace sparkled up at me from its bed of dark velvet. The boy fastened the necklace around my neck and then pulled me into his arms.
‘Something to remember me by,’ he whispered. His lips brushed against my ear. ‘In those long days when you are watching on Earth and I’m here guarding Pietra.’ He drew me even closer and we kissed. It was just as it had been in my dream. As our lips moved together he murmured my name, over and over, ‘Amara’.
The memory faded and suddenly it was his name that exploded from my lips in a scream.
‘Marn!’
Marn’s head lolled back. With his hand still clasped tightly around his memory device, he crumpled and fell on the ground. He lay there, comatose. I was paralysed with grief, but even then I couldn’t help but compare him to Dan. The two boys were uncannily similar yet at the same time so very different. Marn was the sun and Dan the moon – and just like the sun and the moon, Marn would always shine more brightly.
An acid feeling burned in the bottom my stomach. It welled up and rose through my chest and into my throat. My nose tingled and I retched, over and over, until my stomach was empty and my muscles ached. Tears pooled in my eyes, and saliva ran from the side of my mouth. I groped in my pocket for a tissue and wiped away both the spit and the sweat on my face. I felt drained. There was a foul taste in my mouth and my head ached.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. I stroked Marn’s suntanned face. ‘Amorra mi, I’m so sorry.’
Fear paralysed my brain. All I could think about was Marn waking and not being able to remember me. Was there a greater irony than for my amoretta to lose his memories, just as I was regaining mine?
A hand on my shoulder made me gasp. ‘Dan!’ I wheeled round to face him.
‘Have you killed him too?’ Dan’s eyes were glazed like a sleepwalker.
‘No! I haven’t killed anyone.’ How could he think that of me? But with Marn sprawled on the ground, lying so still that it was impossible to tell if he was breathing, maybe it wasn’t so difficult.
My heart hammered against my chest. What if more Pietrans came through the verbole? How long before the Earth-side Guards discovered us? ‘You have to get out of here.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. No secrets, you promised. Remember?’
‘No secrets, I promise. Only I can’t tell you anything here. It’s too dangerous. You have to go before they find you.’
‘I’m staying put. Whoever they are, I won’t let them harm you.’
‘I’m not the one in danger. You are. It’s complicated. I’ll explain everything later, but right now you have to trust me and go. Please.’
Dan reached out and took both my hands in his. ‘No! Whatever this is, we’re in it together.’
We weren’t though, not any more. ‘Please, Dan, just go. You’re lucky they haven’t caught you already. The Guards are professionals.’
A ghost of a smile lit Dan’s face. ‘I know there are Guards.’
My eyes raked the mountainside. It was only a matter of time before someone discovered us here. Then everything would be over. What chance did I stand against Tor and his men? There was only one way left to save Dan.
‘Go,’ I said harshly. ‘Or you’re next.’ I waved the memory device at him. ‘You’d kill me too?’ Dan was almost too stunned to speak.
I went to correct him then stopped. Let him think what he liked, if it got rid of him.
Dan eyes pleaded with mine. I held his gaze without flinching, even though it tore me apart.
‘You’d really kill me?’ A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘I trusted you, Amber.’ Abruptly he turned and walked away.
I wanted to call out and tell him to be careful, that the danger wasn’t over and he should stay hidden as he made his way back to town. I didn’t dare, though. I couldn’t let him know that I cared about his safety, or he’d guess my bluff. I watched him jog away until finally he disappeared into the trees. By then I couldn’t stand up any longer. Shooting pains needled my skull. I felt sick with giddiness. I needed to lie down. I lowered myself to the ground and cradled my head on my arms. It was very uncomfortable, but it helped stem the nausea.
I must have blacked out. The next thing I remember, someone was gently shaking me awake. At first my eyes wouldn’t focus. My senses told me I wasn’t in my Waterside room, but I couldn’t work out where I was.
‘Amara, are you okay?’ Nardo’s voice brought everything rushing back. Misery punched my stomach. I’d messed up. Marn, my amoretta, was lying unconscious, possibly with a damaged memory. Dan, my best friend here on Earth, hated me. It couldn’t get any worse.
Nardo pushed a strand of hair from my face. I grabbed his hand and weakly gripped his fingers.
‘Can you sit up?’ Tor leaned over me.
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from groaning out loud as he and Nardo helped me into a sitting position. They removed their fleeces and used them as padding as they propped me against a boulder.
‘What happened? How did Marn get here?’
Guilt almost suffocated me. ‘Johnny,’ I whispered. ‘He came after me. There was a struggle. We fell through the verbole.’
‘What?’ Both Tor and Nardo were aghast. ‘You went through the verbole without wearing a travel suit?’
‘And Johnny, but I brought him straight back and gave him a memory patch. He’s over there, comatose.’
‘By the love of Pietra! What were you thinking?’ Tor’s eyes blazed with fury. ‘Two journeys in the verbole, back to back without the mandatory time lag and without wearing a protective suit – the effects of magnetic energy could have killed you!’
So that’s why I felt like I’d been dancing with death. Nardo had mentioned travel suits, not that it would have made any difference at the time. ‘We fell,’ I protested. ‘Johnny held a gun to me.’
Nardo gripped my arm. ‘Are you wounded?’
I shook my head and immediately wished I hadn’t. My brain must have slipped anchor from the way it was crashing against my skull. ‘The gun, it’s still in Pietra.’
‘The Pietran side Guards will find it. They’ll dispose of it safely. Why’s Marn here? What happened to him?’
I looked at Marn, who lay a short distance from me, and then at Johnny, sprawled on his back like a dead
rat. Guilt twisted my tongue. I had to fight it to avoid blurting out the truth. ‘I didn’t know that Marn had followed us back to Earth. I was putting a memory patch on Johnny when he arrived. Johnny was struggling and Marn got in the way just as I applied the patch. At first I thought he was fine. He ran off shouting. I dealt with Johnny and when I’d finished...’ The words stuck in my throat. ‘Marn, he wasn’t good. He sort of fell down.’
‘That’s bad.’
A sob rose in my throat. ‘You said it was harmless! I remember Marn. He’s my amoretta. What if I’ve destroyed all his memories?’
‘You won’t have.’ Nardo hugged me. ‘Memory patches are harmless. They wipe the memory of anything unusual. So you and Johnny arriving in Pietra would be unusual, as would you administering Marn with a memory patch. When Marn wakes he won’t have a clue where he is or how he got here. It’s fantastic that you remember him.’ Nardo’s face shone with happiness.
Pain was splitting my head in two. I massaged my forehead. ‘What if it doesn’t work properly? You said there’d been accidents.’
‘On people,’ said Nardo. ‘Their brains are different from ours.’
Tor’s face was saying something different. ‘In the early stages, when the memory drug was being developed, we tested it on Pietrans and there were a few accidents,’ he said, carefully. ‘But these test cases were Pietrans who refused to conform to our way of life. You could say the accidents occurred because their brains weren’t operating on the same wavelength as a normal Pietran. In every society there are rogues. Marn’s a fine upstanding citizen. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll suffer any adverse effects from the memory drug.’
‘But it’s not impossible?’
‘Nothing’s impossible,’ said Tor heavily.
Bile rose in my mouth. It burned my throat as I swallowed it down. What if I had damaged Marn’s memories? I would never forgive myself.
Twenty-three
Tor sent me back to the portacasa with Nardo. I protested like mad. I wanted to stay with Marn, but apparently you didn’t argue with a superior.
‘I’ll overlook your insubordination this time. You’ve taken two trips in the verbole, without the appropriate protective clothing, so it’s natural that you are not yourself.’ Tor’s reprimand was spoken gently. ‘Go and rest. You need to be in top condition to enable us to execute your exit from Earth without arousing suspicion. If the plan goes wrong, then we’ll be looking at mass memory reassembly.’
Nardo put his arm around me as he led me away. ‘Don’t worry about Marn. He’ll wake up with a sore head and he’ll probably feel confused. When he finds out what happened he’s bound to laugh it off. You know he will.’
I knew Marn had a great sense of humour, but what if the memory drug went wrong on him? What if… I was obsessing and it wasn’t helpful. To change the subject I asked, ‘What’s going to happen to Johnny now?’
‘The Guards will transport him back to town and leave him near Robert. When both men wake, and see all the empty bottles that we’ve planted around them, they’ll naturally assume that they’ve been sleeping off a bad hangover.’
I’d taken a few reluctant steps towards the portacasa when I remembered something. ‘Wait! Johnny’s pockets are full of quartz and gold pebbles that he took when we were in Pietra.’
‘Shizatt!’ Nardo swore. ‘Can you stand on your own for a minute?’
I nodded. I was feeling much better and didn’t need his help any more, but it was nice to have his arm round me. My memories of Nardo were still a blank. I liked him, though, and I was beginning to feel a connection between us. Nardo ran back to Tor and together they emptied Johnny’s pockets. Afterwards Nardo conducted a mental search of Johnny, using his telekinetic skills. As I watched Johnny’s clothes ripple from Nardo’s mind touch I felt strangely reassured. Nardo would leave no stone unturned – literally! Imagine if a pebble or piece of quartz had been left behind in Johnny’s pocket. Its presence would seriously jeopardise the safety of our world. Tor counted the rocks and golden pebbles they’d extracted from Johnny and when Nardo got back to the portacasa he counted them again, to make sure that he hadn’t lost any en route. Then he locked them away in a safe that was concealed in the kitchen floor.
Nardo made breakfast. I sat and played with mine, a white Earth cube that had melted into something resembling yoghurt and fruit. A short while later Tor joined us. He refused food but accepted a mug of hot water with a slice of limonge. He cradled the mug in his hands as he debriefed me. He made me recount everything that had happened out on the mountain, in such minuscule detail, that I had to think very hard about what I said. Eventually, Tor seemed satisfied, but he still proceeded to give me another lecture on the importance of the Confidentiality Decree. I felt as if he didn’t quite trust me. Or maybe I was suffering from a guilty conscience.
Immediately after my debriefing, Tor and Nardo started an intense discussion on the state of the security around the Earth-side verbole.
‘We need more Guards and they need to be stationed much closer to the verbole,’ said Tor.
‘What about the mandatory distance?’ Nardo argued. ‘If we allow the Guards to work any closer to the verbole, they’ll be exposed to too much radiation. They won’t be able to do their jobs properly if they get sick. ’
‘They can work closer if we make the shifts shorter,’ Tor argued.
I rested my elbows on the table, with my hands supporting my chin, and let the argument float over my head. The day I’d woken up in hospital with no memory would stay with me for the rest of my life. It had seemed like the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me. At the time I thought that life couldn’t have got any worse. Only now it had. I hated the thought of Marn lying unconscious on the mountainside, especially when it was my fault. Marn needed me by his side, a familiar face when he woke. There hadn’t been enough spare guards to carry him back to the portacasa straight away, but Tor had promised me that in the meantime he’d check on him frequently. I was terrified that Marn would wake when he was alone. Please let him remember who he was. Marn and I were good together. The best! I refused to contemplate a future without him.
Then there was Dan. No wonder I’d been attracted to him. In many ways he was so like Marn. Dan had risked his life for me, and I’d always be grateful for that, but what of our friendship? Did it have a future? I didn’t know. One thing I was certain about, though. Dan thought I was a killer and his misconception could jeopardise everything.
I had a duty to come clean and confess my sins to Tor. He could easily contain the situation, by performing a memory reassembly on Dan and everyone he’d shared my secrets with.
No! How could I even think that! I slammed my treacherous thoughts away, shut them in a box and stood on the lid. Dan, his family and all my friends at Waterside deserved better treatment from me. My time on Earth, living as a human, had taught me things that Pietrans didn’t understand. You couldn’t paint every person with the same brush. Individuals, governments even, were greedy. They started wars and caused pollution. But there was a greater number of humans who were kind and compassionate. I was convinced that if we, the Pietrans, shared our technological advances and knowledge with humans, there could be a better future for Earth. It didn’t have to be the one of self-destruction that Nardo had prophesised. There was a brighter future that humans would sign up to, if they were properly educated to the benefits.
I was suddenly even keener to return to my home planet. From my experiences so far, I reasoned, that once I was there, my memories would flood back. Then I would ask the medicio to pronounce me fit to return to Earth. My work here wasn’t done. I’d lived as a human. That made me unique. I had a more intimate knowledge of human behaviour than anyone else on my planet. Somehow, I had to make Pietrans see that humans were intrinsically good, that we had a duty to show them how to conserve their world. What they did with that knowledge
was their prerogative. But at least we would have tried to help, rather than stand back and let the Earth be destroyed.
‘How about it, Amara?’ Tor’s voice broke into my thoughts. ‘You’ve been through so much. I’d feel much happier if you rested a while. Stay here for another night, before you return to Waterside. It would give Nardo some extra time to refresh your training.’
Tor wanted me to stay for another night? It was a tempting idea. I’d be around when Marn woke. It might make a difference to how his memory coped with the after-effects of the drug, if I was here in person. I was about to agree to his suggestion when I remembered Dan. I needed to see him quickly. I had to tell him what had happened out there on the mountain, before he told people what he thought he’d seen. The safety of Pietra was in my hands. No exaggeration. My head and my heart wanted two very different things. I wrestled with my decision, but I was a Watcher. My head won out.
‘I have to go back now. Mia and Jeff are expecting me. There’ll be too many awkward questions if I stay away any longer.’
Tor studied me for a moment, his face unreadable, then he nodded, ‘Yes, you’re right. It’s best that we get this over and done with quickly. You shouldn’t be here. You need to be back in Pietra, where we can get you to a medicio, one who specialises in the brain.’ He stopped abruptly and a muscle twitched in his jaw.
I knew he was thinking of Nell. I changed the subject by asking him a question. ‘What happened to Holly?’
‘She’s been dealt with. She won’t cause you any more problems.’
Poor Holly! Even though she was such a cow I couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her. Like Nell and me, she was a victim too: wrong place, wrong time.
Tor raised a smile then he patted my arm. ‘Keep it up, Amara. You’re doing a great job.’
I wondered if he’d still be smiling if he knew the truth.
A short while later Nardo accompanied me back to Balochry so I could catch the train to Edinburgh. He insisted on talking me all the way to the train station. ‘Look after yourself,’ he said breathlessly, as we parted. He sounded as if he was scared to let me go.
