Nicola Griffith - Slow River

“How long will she need to stay in bed?”

“Up to her. The danger of spontaneous redislocation and infection should be past in about forty-eight hours.” He nodded once, shortly, and left. I felt terribly ashamed.

At four that afternoon, Spanner woke up and managed to drink some water.

“Go home.” Raspy, but perfectly clear.

“The medic said—”

“Just go away.”

“You shouldn’t be left alone.”

“What about. That job. Of yours.”

“I’m not going anywhere while you need me.”

“I don’t want you. In my flat. You left it once. I won’t have you staying. Here. Out of pity. Go away.”

“You need—”

“Go away.” Her eyes were so wide that white showed all the way around the irises. She meant it.

“There are four hypos left. I’ll set the system to wake you every four hours. You must use them. The medic says there’s danger of infection. He’s coming back tomorrow morning. I’ll lock the door behind me, just the mechanical lock, and give him a message about where the key is.”

Silence, apart from her breathing. “I got the money.”

“I don’t care about the money!”

“I do. I earned every. Single. Penny.” Her face was. gray again. “Shit. Shit. Hurts.”

I wondered if she had laughed and come while he had been popping out her joints. I turned away, swallowing bile.

She laughed, very softly, so as not to shake her arms or legs. “You never could. Face reality. Go on. Go back to your job. Earn your. Respectable money. But don’t forget. Me and you. Have a bargain.”

“I’ll call you when—”

“Don’t. I’ll call you. When it’s time. About ten days.”

Tom was leaving the building just as I got back. He asked me something about the fake ad I was making, then peered at me.

“You look terrible.”

“I’m fine.” I tried to smile and push past him.

He grabbed my arm. “Leave him,” he said bluntly. “Or her. Find someone who’ll care about you.”

“I’m fine,” I repeated tiredly. “I need to get some rest before work.”

He sighed and let me go.

I called Ruth and Ellen’s. Both out. No forwarding, as usual. “This is Lore. Spanner’s hurt. She won’t let me help her. She might let you, Ellen.” I told her where I had left the key. “Please. Help her.”

I went on shift that day as though everything were fine. Nothing happened. The readings kept showing normal. It was easier to concentrate on the job than to think about Spanner and her pain.

The next day, and the day after that, I went to each equipment locker on my list and tested oxygen tanks, meters, foam canisters. The moon suits, the level-A protective gear, were good quality stuff flashproof as well as fitted with two-stage regulators. The battery’ telltales were green when I tested them, and the radios were in working order.

“Everything so far is in surprisingly good shape,” I told Magyar.

“Good. Keep checking.”

I made sure that the EEBA by the readout console was working, then checked the portable eye showers, the emergency lockdown valves, the reverse pumps. There was fresh oil on one of the pump works. I rubbed it thoughtfully between finger and thumb. The oil felt strange, almost tacky, on the plasthene gloves. After I’d checked the exits and the sprinkler system I called Magyar again. “I’m puzzled.”

“You surprise me, Bird.”

I ignored that. “I found fresh oil on one of the pumps.”

“Good. Or isn’t it?”

“It’s just puzzling. None of the maintenance logs indicate any attention in the last few months. But I find all the batteries are charged, all the pumps freshly greased, all the air tanks full. That last is especially unusual. A good snort of O, works well on a hangover.”

She caught on fast. “Then who’s been topping everything up?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.” But I was more interested in why than who. Someone was making sure the emergency gear was in good condition. Whoever it was knew enough to understand we might be heading for trouble. “Who here knows how to use all this stuff?”

“I doubt if anyone does. I can use the moon suits, but the others haven’t clapped eyes on an EEBA since their orientation video, assuming they were shown it, or bothered to watch it if they were.”

“They need to learn.”

“Training will mean a drop in productivity. Hepple won’t authorize it.” A moment of silence.

“If you’re thinking of asking them to stay behind on a voluntary basis, they won’t like it.”

“But they’ll do it.” She looked offscreen at her watch. “Still twenty-five minutes of break left. Lots of time to spread the good news.”

I was right: they didn’t like it.

“Why?” demanded Cel.

“First reduced productivity pay because of the masks,” grumbled Meisener. “Now this.”

Kinnis just looked surly. “I don’t understand.”

Cel folded her arms. “We’re already shorthanded, worked half to death. I think we need a good reason to go along with this as well.”

“How about this,” Magyar said pleasantly. “One week from today there will be a test of emergency procedure know-how. All personnel who fail will be dismissed without notice and without pay in lieu. Good enough?”

Kinnis sighed. “What’s the pass rate?”

“I’ll be fair. Anyone who attends all sessions and spells their name right passes. Lessons start tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your break.”

I was beginning to appreciate Magyar more and more.

It is five weeks before Lore’s eighteenth birthday, She is at the party of a young woman called Sarah. Sarah’s family owns half the real estate in Montevideo. The party is being held in what is sometimes called an aesthetics research institute, but is really a pleasure resort, dug into cave complexes beneath the Rio Negro.

Lore and Sarah and about a hundred other invited guests are standing, bare-armed in their finery, in a vast underground auditorium. The walls, which are more than three hundred feet high, are tiled with white ceramic; the floor is paved with milky brick; the corners and doors and lights are sealed with white enamel. The air is frigid.

Sarah, whom Lore has known for only a week, has beautiful, satiny beige skin and black hair cut longer at the front than the back. Her hair is blowing this way and that in the cold breeze coming from the tunnel that leads into the cave from the right. Although the tunnel is probably ninety feet in diameter, it occupies only the top corner of the wall.

People are talking and drinking, but they have been promised a surprise by Sarah, and there is a current of tension under the conversation. They are waiting.

It is hard to say when it actually begins. Over the tinkle of crystal and the susurrus of silk Lore hears, no, feels, a change. A vibration. The breeze falters, resumes differently. Something is skimming toward them down the tunnel. Others feel it now, too. Heads turn this way and that; Lore catches the anxious glitter of diamond earrings. It is coming.

There is a whispering from the tunnel, and Lore can feel it against her skin: the approach of something huge. Everyone watches the dark hole. No one is talking. Lore thinks of beasts and their lairs, the tunnels they make. But what animal would make its home in this kind of cold?

Suddenly warmer air comes boiling, nothing from the tunnel, and she can see something approaching, something so huge and black it fills the opening of the tunnel. It is so big her mind quails, and it is gathering its muscles to leap.

God! she thinks, because this is not a projection. She can feel the heat radiating from the beast; she can feel the air moving. And there is an animal smell, dusty and hot, and the electric tension of the hunter’s mesmerizing gaze. Someone cries out, and there is a burst of muscle-straining panic: people throw themselves to the floor, pearls breaking, stones ripping from jeweled chokers. Lore catches a glimpse of eye-white and feline green, and ivory yellow reaching claws as the beast pours smoothly from the tunnel.