madness. A woman who believed she was being persecuted, that someone was beaming images into her head, or into the air all around her.
Milena tried to think at him, very clearly, in the silence.
I’ve got someone angry at me, she told him, without words. She is the best hologrammer in the world. She tried to burn out my eyes. Thus the mirrors. Now, everywhere I go, when I am alone, she hounds me with very unpleasant imagery.
She kept backing away, drawing him up the bank, away from the others. Away from other people, he could Read her more clearly.
I’m telling you this because you’re Snide, and you can see what I see.
He began to look anxious, and with a tug on her arm, brought her to a stop. Then she pushed it all at him, the carcass in the living-room, the flies, the sun in her retina, and the things she had just seen.
‘Do you believe me?’ she asked him out loud, so he would remember to answer her in words.
The Snide’s mouth hung open for a moment, and then he answered, choosing his words very carefully. ‘I believe… that you believe it.’
Milena knew what that meant. How could she expect anything else? It sounded like madness even to her.
‘Right. Fine,’ she said, in a flat voice and began to walk back to the taxi station. She looked at her feet as she walked. Her shoes that now stank of fish grinned up at her with the faces of fish. The blubbery fish mouths were painted red with lipstick, and the eyes were ringed with blue make-up and mascara.
See that? She jabbed the thought towards the Snide, and spun around to show him the shoes. My shoes, she cubed faces onto my shoes. Did you see it? Just then? It was in the light! It was real! It was real!
Al the Snide watched her warily. No, he had not see it. Milena turned away in a fury of disappointment and walked back into the crowd. The crowd was stirring. Dimly, Milena began to hear the sound of a taxi’s engine. People were climbing up the slope of the bank for their baskets. Milena stood in line. Al rejoined her.
There’s no way for you to tell, is there? she asked him in her mind. All you can Read is my memories, and they may or may not be mad. All you can tell is that I believe them. So now you tell me, Milena thought, distinctly, what has happened to you? Al looked confused and shook his head and held up his hands in helplessness. Too many people. He couldn’t Read her clearly.
‘How long have you been farming coriander?’ she asked Al aloud.
The water-taxi was drawing near, a round, heavy black tug with a tiny steam engine. ‘No moorings, no moorings,’ a boy on the deck was shouting. ‘You’ll have to wade to us!’
People rolled up the bottom of their shorts, or plunged into the brown water that was infested with bilharzia. The Snide answered, warily, looking about him. ‘They’re after me,’ Al said, murmuring, thin-lipped.
Milena couldn’t quite hear. She pulled out an earplug, and leaned towards him.
‘Since all this Singing, they’re after anyone who plays with the viruses,’ he said, standing up straight and looking away from her as if they were not talking. ‘They’ve got Snides out after all of us now. I’ve got to stay with people all the time too, to hide. Like you had to, from me.’
‘I need your help,’ whispered Milena.
He closed his eyes. ‘They want to wipe me,’ he said. ‘They’re wiping everyone.’
Please?
And Al’s eyes looked back into hers with terror. He shook his head. ‘I can’t lift my head above ground.’
Milena closed her eyes and nodded. She took hold of Al’s arm, as if to say, I understand. Her hand was shaking. I must look mad, she thought, and tried to smooth down her hair. I didn’t remember to comb my hair.
Al was still looking at her, and his eyes were full of horror. Am I really that bad? Milena thought. She pulled off her stinking new shoes and began to wade towards the boat.
They slid down the mud into the water. Milena’s immune system sent Mice crawling all over her knees and ankles. The crawling itched. The water was thick and hot, and the mud felt like porridge suffused with bits of twig. Milena rinsed her shoes and then they climbed up rope ladders into the boat. It was crowded. Everyone stood pressed close together. Milena had a wall of sweaty backs pushed against her face. There was no conversation. The boat pulled away from the bank, and the people in it sweltered, smelling of mud and reeds. People clung to the outside of the boat, hanging on the rope ladders.
The taxi chugged its way through the locks. The gates were open, the wooden walls were going grey and dry. There were gaps between the timbers where the wood had shrunk. The Slump and the Pit were now on the same water level.
There were high Coral embankments with steps rising up from the docks. They cast cool, delicious shadows. Relieved to be in shade at last, the passengers began to climb slowly, one step at a time, to savour it.
Rowing boats still clustered around the locks, but bigger boats and water-taxis lay tilted on their sides in the mud. Seagulls padded their way clumsily across the silt.
‘I can treat you to a glide,’ Milena said to Al as they waited in line for the steps. She would hire a punt. She didn’t want to be by herself, with Thrawn.
Al shook his head, no. ‘A farmer doesn’t ride with a Party Member.’ It would draw attention, raise questions. He made a gesture of ducking. He had to keep low.
Milena nodded slow acknowledgement. She found a boatman on the quay, and looked back up the lock steps. Al was already gone, lost amid all the other water farmers. But as her boatman rowed them away, up the narrow river, she saw him standing on the edge of the bank. He was still looking at her, puzzled, scowling.
If only it would rain, thought Milena. If it would rain, the images would refract. She felt the small straw basket she carried. At least I still have my flask, she thought. I still have my flask full of water. She went on to the Zoo, and her heart began to sink at the thought of what awaited her there.
The Tykes at the desks prodded each other into silence as Milena approached. Monkeys, Milena called them in her mind, as they fought down grins. Here comes the mad lady, Monkeys.
Milena gave her name, trying to sound normal, asking if there were any messages. It was as if her skin gave off an odour of tension, as if she made the air vibrate with it. One of the girls said something, and because of the padding in her ears, Milena couldn’t hear and had to ask the Monkeys to repeat themselves.
Milena felt their eyes on her back as she walked away. Her shoulders hunched up, and she rocked so badly that she stumbled. She couldn’t be sure if she heard the Monkeys laugh behind her.
She walked down the corridor to the rehearsal rooms. Severed hands scuttled towards her like crabs. They wore rings of coral flowers.
I just have to hold on, Milena told herself. Hold on until Thrawn loses patience, until she breaks, or until they send me into space.
In the rehearsal hall, the cast were waiting. They were trying to record the opening, just the earliest passages of the first Canto. The cast performed, and Milena created the world around them, the world of Dante’s forest. It was to be beamed from space, images the size of a continent.
It wasn’t working.
Milena was late again, for a start. Milena was always late now. I can’t travel early, thought Milena, or I’ll be alone with the images all the way and I couldn’t stand that. So you’ll all have to wait. I’m sorry, but since you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what was happening, you’ll all just have to put up with it.
Milena did not apologise.
You think I’m crazy too, she thought.
Milena could see that in the slightly grim faces ranged against her. Cilia and Peterpaul looked bored and betrayed. And Toll Barrett leaned back in his chair without looking at her at all. A director himself, Toll was helping with the cubing. Milena rocked her head from side to side and put her basket down on a chair.
‘Good morning, Milena,’ said Cilia, deliberately loudly. Expected politeness had not been received.
Tough, thought Milena. ‘Hello,’ she said distracted. She gathered strength to face what was coming. ‘Toll. I’m going to ask you again to keep an eye out for any disruption coming from outside the cube. Huh?’
‘Sure,’ he said, without looking at her.
‘I know that something is disrupting the images.’
Thrawn was sabotaging them.
