Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

Marghe turned her face away, winced as the wind bit into her raw cheek.

“Here.”

Frustration made her angry, and stubborn. She refused to look at what Aoife offered.

“Grease for your face.”

Marghe ignored her. Aoife swung her mount in front of Marghe’s and wrenched them both to a halt. She pulled Marghe’s face to hers by the chin. Her eyes were flat and brown.

“You will take this grease.”

Marghe stared at Aoife’s broken nose, the thick white scar that writhed over her cheekbone, nose, and mouth, and made no move to take the small clay pot.

Aoife sighed and pulled off a glove. “Hold still.” Strong blunt fingers smoothed the grease delicately over Marghe’s face. Nose first, forehead, chin, then cheeks.

Marghe flinched, then relaxed. It did not hurt.

“Close your eyes and mouth.”

This time she obeyed, and Aoife stroked the thick, milk-colored stuff onto her lips and eyelids. Then she stowed away her pot.

Marghe touched her lips, the sore place on her cheek; the grease was a kindness.

“Thank you.”

Aoife nodded. “The others are far ahead.” They kicked their mounts into a gallop.

Marghe checked her compass and saw that they galloped northwest. Ollfoss, and the forest, lay northeast.

They rode hard for three days and Marghe began to understand Aoife’s contempt for Pella. The mare looked gaunt and dull-eyed, while the shaggy horses seemed tireless. They ate on the move, strips of dried meat, and drank a sour, half-frozen slush called locha. It was made from fermented taar milk. Marghe hated it, but she drank it; it put warmth in her gut.

As they neared the main camp, the tribeswomen seemed to relax. They talked more among themselves. Marghe listened and learned: the triple handful of riders were returning from the annual ceremony at the ringstones.

“Did I interrupt your ceremony?” she asked Aoife as they swung back into the saddle one afternoon.

“It was finished. The Levarch was showing us the southern pasturelands. We were on our way home when Uaithne found you.”

She remembered Uaithne’s threat. Intrusion in some religions carried an automatic death penalty. “Have I disturbed the… rightfulness of the stones for you?”

“No.” Aoife paused. “It’s happened before. Twice.”

Marghe’s heart thumped. Winnie? She licked her lips, swallowed. “What happened to the women?”

Uaithne galloped past. Aoife shook her head and would not answer any more questions.

At the end of the third day, they came to the winter camp of the Echraidhe.

DANNER TURNED AWAY from the lists on her screen and looked instead at the tapestry on the wall behind her. It was an abstract of blues and golds about a meter square, a present from her deputy, Ato Teng, about a year ago. She wondered if Teng had made it herself, this marvelous picture that made her feel hollow inside, like homesickness. Or had the artist given it to Teng? In exchange for what? It bothered her that she did not know the answers to these questions, that she did not know her deputy well enough to even guess.

Her office had no window. Port Central followed Company design: the nerve center, her office, was protected by myriad other rooms, corridors, and storerooms.

There were no external signs for indigenes to read and follow; the usual procedure.

More than one Company security installation had suffered sabotage. But here on Jeep, the precautions were ridiculous. The natives simply stayed away. Port Central had become a sophisticated prison for its inmates, while the natives roamed a whole world.

She wished she had a window because sometimes, sitting here in her box of an office, with the air always the same temperature and officers all wearing the same uniform, she could believe that this was a normal situation, one that could be resolved by the application of all those wonderful scenarios and procedures taught at the academy in Dublin. But Jeep was not normal. What other Company planet was under the charge of a lieutenant?

She fingered the insignia sealed to her epaulets. She might wear the two stars of a commander, but in her head she was still a lieutenant, playing at command, as though it were a test after which the real brass would unplug her from the simulator and point out all her mistakes, patting her on the back for any smart moves. But here there was no one to tell her if she had made any smart moves, no one to talk to about anything. Command isolated her more effectively than a deadly disease.

When she had first realized how it was going to be, that she was the superior officer, she had been scared. Hundreds of people relied on her. Hundreds. In those first weeks she had been too scared, shaking too hard, to spend time with anyone. In front of others, she was not allowed to be Hannah Danner, the newest lieutenant on Jeep; she had to be Acting Commander Danner, the one with all the answers, her orders crisp, clear, and fast as the breaking of a bone. It reached the stage where she could not even bring herself to eat or drink in front of other officers. It took her a long time to learn that patterns of command were well laid; as long as what she asked people to do made some kind of sense, they would be glad to have someone in charge. Then she relaxed a little. But the habit was already formed: isolation, loneliness, solitude.

Her older sister, who had had more to do with bringing her up than her parents, had said it was never too late to start over. But Claire had been wrong about many things.

Claire had taken her side against liberal parents who had been horrified when Hannah had announced she wanted to join up. It had been Claire who came to graduation and hugged her, then apologized for rumpling her dress uniform; Claire who told her, tears in her eyes, that there was nothing she could not do, if she wanted it badly enough, even to changing the world. She had believed that, then.

That day in Dublin, with the air soft and green after an Irish rainfall, she had believed that she could make a difference—that in a few years she would be commander on some Company world, defending the rights of those who could not speak for themselves, making the opening up of a new world a thing of pride and wonder, not horror. Oh, yes, that day in Dublin she had believed, and had been proud to wear this uniform.

Her desk chimed. Danner turned away from the tapestry as her screen windowed on Vincio’s face. She sighed, and touched the window, which expanded to fill the screen. The philosophy could wait.

“Sergeant Lu Wai and Technicians Dogias and Neuyen are back, ma’am. Lu Wai and Dogias request a personal debriefing.”

“What’s wrong with just putting the report on my desk?” Vincio, who always seemed to know when a question was rhetorical, said nothing. “They specifically asked for me, not Lieutenant Fa’thezam?”

“Yes, ma’am. The sergeant said that what they wanted to talk about was more than a communications issue.”

Lu Wai was a reliable officer, a good sergeant. If she was in such a hurry to get to the commander with this story, it meant trouble. “Tell them to be ready in one hour.”

The screen reverted to lists of figures. In the last two years she had become well acquainted with the needs of many disciplines, how their smooth functioning depended upon seemingly innocuous items such as suture reels, case 12 x 20 or cable clips, heavy, Cu and Al, sheathed . The little things always ran out first.

She looked carefully at the medical supplies. The one-shot subdermal diffusion injectors were low. Allergy shots accounted for much of that. She tapped in a request, nodded thoughtfully. There were hypodermic syringes available, but they too were disposable. The medics would have to find a way to reuse their injectors, or stop giving allergy shots. Sophisticated antibacterial and painkilling drugs were no use without the means to inject them. Lu Wai was a medic, wasn’t she? She made a note to talk to her about it.