Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

A four-year-old memory superimposed itself behind her eyelids: the smile of victory on Helen Relman’s face as she stood straight while Danner attached the sub’s shoulder pips. What had Relman been thinking that day? Danner sighed. She doubted she would ever get the same pleasure from a promotion ceremony again.

She would probably never hold another promotion ceremony.

Her eyes stung. She rubbed at them impatiently. She had better things to do than indulge in old memories.

Back in her office, tea steaming in front of her, she punched in Sara Hiam’s code.

“This is Danner. We have a woman called Helen Relman. Sublieutenant. She’s not talking, but there’s at least one other person working with her. Name or names unknown. Dogias will have the tape to me in just a few minutes; that might help.” She took a sip of her tea. “Or it might not.”

She put down her tea, rubbed at her forehead. “Sara, what if this woman won’t talk?”

“Make her,” Hiam said bluntly. “There are several drugs available to your medics that are efficient and painless.”

“I don’t like the idea of drugs.”

“Who does? But do you have the right to not use them to get information that might be vital to the survival of hundreds of people, just because of your squeamishness?”

Danner sighed. This was the last thing she needed.“I thought you might be a little more sympathetic, both to me and to Relman.”

Sara laughed, a flat, ugly laugh. “Sympathetic? Danner, I’m feeling too damned scared to be sympathetic. Every time I’start to fall asleep I imagine the gunnery officer aboard the Kurst hitting the trigger by mistake. When I do sleep I dream about never waking up. Drug the woman, find out what you can.”

“I may not have to.”

“Maybe not. But don’t spend too long trying it the other way.”

Over the next day, Danner tried everything she knew: threats, cajolery, sympathy.

Relman stayed silent. Time was running out. She decided to give Cardos, who seemed to understand the danger of Relman’s situation better than Relman herself, one more try.

When Danner brought Cardos over from her secured room in the medical wing, Kahn stood up from her chair outside the glass-paneled sick-bay door and prepared to go in with Cardos.

“Stay here, Anna. Let her go in alone.” Danner gestured for Cardos to go on in,

“Ma’am?”

“We’ll just wait out here.” Danner refused when Kahn offered her the chair.

Time passed slowly. The sealed skin patch in Danner’s pocket felt larger than it was. She brushed it with her fingertip. Don’t make me use this, Relman .

When Cardos came back out, she was shaking her head. “Nothing. I could try again.”

“Would it do any good?”

“I…No.”

“Officer Kahn will escort you to your room.”

“Shall I call Sergeant Lu Wai here first, ma’am?” Kahn asked.

“That won’t be necessary. And when you return, take a position at the other end of the corridor.”

Kahn looked surprised, Cardos scared. “You won’t hurt her?”

“No.” She would not have to. She stepped into sick bay.

The room was small, low-ceilinged; the walls were a soft spring green. It held two beds, a screen, and a framed print on the wall opposite the door. There were no windows. Relman was clinged to the nearest bed; she looked better, not the awful pinched white of the evening before.

Just you and me, Relman.

“One last time, Relman. Tell me what I need to know.”

Relman ignored her.

“This isn’t a game, Lieutenant, and my time and patience have just run out. I don’t want to drug you, but I will.”

This time Relman looked at her. “No, I don’t think so. Using drugs against another’s will is illegal and unethical. I know you, Danner, You won’t do it.”

Relman really believed that, Danner thought, and then was angry: with Company, with Hiam, with Relman herself for forcing her to do this.

“God dammit, Relman. Listen to me. Really listen. Forget what you know about fair play and employee rights. Right now, above our heads, people aboard the Kurst are trying to decide whether or not to kill us all or simply abandon us. I need what you know. Hundreds of lives may depend upon it, and that supersedes all my notions of right and wrong. Believe me, I will use drugs.”

Relman paled a little. “Then go ahead. I’m not telling you anything.”

Stupid, stupid woman.

Danner took the foil package from her pocket. When she tore it open, it released a faint antiseptic smell. Use a pre-op patch , Hiam had said, a muscle relaxant. She’ll stay awake for twenty minutes or more, and she won’t care what she talks about.

I’ve had people tell me the weirdest things while they’re under .

Danner rolled up Relman’s right trouser leg and slapped the patch harder than necessary behind her knee. She could have saved herself this , Danner thought fiercely, it was in her hands. I’m not to blame. I’m not . But as she waited, she wished she were a thousand miles away.

After two minutes, Relman began to hum. Danner recognized the tune as one that had been popular on Gallipoli about eight years ago.

“Did you know, Hannah,” Relman said conversationally, “that clings are erotically stimulating? Something to do with the electricity, I think. Makes all my nerves feel alive, and my body—”

“I don’t want to know about your body. I want you to answer my questions.

Who is the other spy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you—” She would try another way. “Is there another spy?”

“Oh, yes.” Relman nodded. “Oh yes, yes, yes.” She could not seem to stop nodding.

“How do you know?”

“She talks to me. On my comm.”

“Is she someone you know?”

“I don’t think so. The voice is all funny—comes through a digital coder. But I always know it’s her because she uses a code number.” Relman smiled brightly, eager to be helpful.

“How often does she contact you, and why?”

“Now and again. To tell me who to listen in on, stuff like that. I have to do what she tells me, but not only what she tells me. I called the Kurst on my own initiative. I thought, ‘Why should Danner be able…’”

Relman’s voice trailed off, and she frowned. There was a sudden stink of feces.

She giggled. “Oops.” Then she smiled again, as though it was a tremendous joke that she was incontinent and incapable.

Danner gritted her teeth. It was not her fault; she had needed this information. She had had no choice. Relman had.

“Why did you do it, Relman?”

“Well, ma’am, you didn’t seem quite right.” Relman grunted; urine pooled on the bed, dripped slowly to the floor. “First of all, you sided with SEC and the natives against Company. Then it, well…” She trailed off, smiled at nothing in particular.

Danner waited. “We’ve been here almost five years, and the last four all we’ve done is mark time: no serious exploration, no mining. And then there’s the mods. The mods the mods the mods.”

Danner waited. “The mods?”

“You know, officers and technicians are decorating them. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. Disturbing. Yes. Disturbing, disturbing, disturb—”

“Why?”

“And you’ve been reducing the guard complement. And Mirrors wear armor less and less, and off-duty civvies are handmade. Think of that, a Mirror wearing handmade clothes…” Relman suddenly seemed to focus. “And when I heard you’d ordered the fence down, what was I supposed to think?”

“You could have come and asked me.”

Relman went on as though Danner had not spoken. “It just seemed to me that you’ve been undermining us, ma’am. Gradually making us seem less and less different to the natives.” Her words were slow now, and slurred. ”Maybe you want us to be natives. But we’re not. We’re not. Only this bit of the world’s ours. And you wanted to take down the boundaries, muddle it all up, let them in. We are who we are, but you’re letting it all get confused. We don’t know why we’re here any more.”