Stephen Baxter - Coalescent

It took a month. Then the day of her final induction arrived.

In a small chamber, deep on the third level, Lucia was asked to strip. She was examined quickly by a female doctor. In the last few days she had already endured a whole battery of medical tests.

Then she was dressed in a simple smocklike dress called a stola . It was white, but with a little purple fabric sewn in. The cloth was very soft, and she wondered how old it was. Her watch and bits of jewelry were taken from her. She wasn’t allowed any underwear; she would be naked, save for the stola . But she was given leather sandals to protect her feet from the cold rock. Murmuring wordlessly, Pina braided Lucia’s hair and tied it up into a bun.

Nothing had been explained to Lucia in advance. She did not know what to expect today. Since Pina had woken her that morning she had felt detached — as if she were a mere observer of what her body was going through, or as if she were fading back into the ghostlike, invisible, unreal figure she had become during her ostracism. She only wanted to be part of the Order, a sister again. She didn’t want her head cluttered up with more questions. She simply accepted each event as it happened, trying not to think any further.

But she was glad Pina was here. Lucia had asked for her. At this strange time it would be comforting to have somebody who knew her so deeply close by.

Pina led her from the brightly lit changing room, out into the dark.

They followed a narrow, dank passage. Arches supported the roof — small red bricks embedded in thick mortar, just as you would see in Rome’s imperial ruins. This was a very old place, she thought, very old indeed.

They came to a small, poky chamber. It was a kind of theater, Lucia realized. It had a raised stage, rooms for actors and scenery, and curved rows of seats, all carved from the tufa. It was very primitive, more or less cut out of the raw rock, and could hold no more than fifty people or so, but an elaborate chrome kissing-fish logo adorned one wall. There was a couch on the stage, which was otherwise bare.

The lighting was dim and smoky, coming from lamps in alcoves carved into the walls: Lucia could smell burning oil. And it was cold. She felt goose bumps on her arms, and her nipples hardened with the cold and pushed against the fine cloth of her shift. She longed to cover herself with her hands, but she knew she must not.

Rosa was here, waiting for her, and Rosetta, one of Lucia’s sisters from her age group, and a couple of older women she didn’t recognize. All of them were dressed in simple garments, like her own stola . Rosetta’s shift had no purple inlay, though, and the round-eyed girl was wearing training shoes and socks.

The older women — older meaning perhaps Rosa’s age — looked at her intently. She sensed hostility in their steady glare, as if they didn’t really want her to be here, as if they would have preferred it to be somebody else. Rosa by comparison seemed triumphant, glowing. Lucia remembered how Rosa had said she had had to fight to ensure Lucia’s acceptance as a new mamma . Perhaps these two women had fought for other candidates. Lucia knew nothing of these battles. But she was still fragile from her ostracism, and she quailed from their glares; she didn’t want anybody to dislike her.

And finally, two very old-looking ladies sat in wheelchairs. They were swathed in silvery high-tech heat- retaining blankets that looked very modern and out of place here. They were matres , mamme-nonne — perhaps even older than Maria Ludovica. Their eyes were like bits of granite, sparkling in the lamplight as they stared at Lucia.

Rosa walked toward her, smiling. She was holding three little statues; they were the tiny, crudely carved figures from the alcove. “Lucia, welcome to your new life.”

She turned away and began to talk softly in an unfamiliar language — it was Latin, Lucia realized after a time. Occasionally the mamme-nonne mumbled responses. Their voices were as dry as dead leaves.

Rosa beckoned Pina forward. Pina produced a small, folded white towel. She unfolded this, to reveal a scrap of linen, stained brown.

Lucia recoiled.

Rosa said, “A little of your first bleeding. You tried to destroy it all, didn’t you? It took poor Pina a long time to find it. Well, now we can finish the job …”

Rosetta carried over a lamp. It was just a wick floating in a pot of oil, small enough to hold in cupped hands. Rosa fed the bit of cloth to the lamp’s flame. It scorched, curled up, and vanished.

All through this the matres were chanting bits of Latin — the same phrases, it seemed, over and over.

Lucia whispered to Pina, “I don’t understand what they are saying.”

“That your blood is precious,” Pina whispered back. “And they are saying, Sisters matter more than daughters. Sisters matter more than daughters … ”

“It’s just like kindergarten,” Lucia whispered, trying to make her voice light.

Pina forced a smile. But her eyes were wide, scared.

“Now,” Rosa said, “it’s time.” She looked past Lucia’s shoulder.

Giuliano stood on the stage, beside the couch. He was wearing a shift like Lucia’s, and he was barefoot. He was looking at her with an intensity that burned through his smile. And an erection pushed out the front of his smock.

Rosa and Pina took her hands and led her toward the couch on the stage. The others were watching, wide-eyed Rosetta, the matres with their eyes like hawks. They chanted Latin, and Pina softly translated: “Your blood is the blood of the Order itself. It must not be mixed with water. I think that means, diluted by the blood of an outsider, a contadino . Your blood is precious …”

It was like a dream — the rhythmic chanting, the uncertain light, the ancient, rounded walls of the theater — everything was unreal save the prickle of cold on her arms. Yet she submitted, as she had at each step.

On the stage, Rosa bade her lift her arms. With a swift motion Pina and Rosa peeled her shift up and over her body. She was left truly naked now, and the little warmth that the cloth had given her was gone.

When she met Giuliano’s eyes, she thought she saw uncertainty. She wondered what he was thinking, how he was truly feeling. But then his gaze strayed to her neck, her breasts, and she was alone again.

Submitting to Rosa’s gentle prompting, she lay down on the couch. It was covered by a thin mattress and a rich crimson cloth, but the couch felt hard under her back, and the cloth prickled her skin.

“Lift up your arms,” Rosa whispered. “Welcome him.”

Lucia did as she was told.

She was looking up at the ceiling, grimed by centuries of smoke, through the frame of her white arms, her limp fingers. In this frame appeared Giuliano. She felt his hands on her thighs. She opened her legs. He lifted up his shift, and placed his arms to either side of her body, to support his weight. His face descended toward hers like a falling moon. She folded her arms over his back; she felt a mat of thick hair there.

Unbidden, a memory of Daniel’s face floated into her mind.

“This is the end of my life,” she whispered to Giuliano.

He frowned. “We mustn’t talk.”

“The end of all choices—”

“I will be gentle.” He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She smelled garlic and fish on his hot breath.

She still had Daniel’s business card, hidden in a corner of her bag.

When Giuliano entered her it hurt, terribly.

Once the ceremony was over, Rosa told Lucia that she would never see Giuliano Andreoli again. Love, it seemed, was over for her.