Cherry goodbye. She was going on a journey that would last two months.
'Take care of everything for me,' she whispered. This was the most dangerous time for her. She was out of action, like a crab that had shed its shell. She would be helpless in the tank; it cost her dearly to make herself like this, but the, rewards would be very great.
'Bring the boy to Siggy when he's finished his training with Dag.' Signy smiled. 'He knows how to bring Siggy into the fight.'
Cherry hesitated, then asked, 'What about the other one?'
'What other one?'
'The baby. Your son. The real one.' There was hardly a trace of reproach in Cherry's voice.
'That! My real son is with Dag. Conor can have the other one.' Signy laughed. 'Or you. You can have him if you like.'
Cherry shrugged. She would have loved to be the boy's mother but she had too much to do. With all her shapes she could only be in one place at the same time.
'Sorry. I know. Keep an eye on the little one for me then,' said Signy, but just to please her puss.
Cherry smiled and withdrew, and the old man, a technician captured along with the glass womb, was ordered to close the door. But he paused for a second and looked at her.
'What is it?' asked the Queen.
'Are you sure? I mean, Ma'am, there are other changes I could make, if you wanted.'
'What changes?'
'Peace of mind.'
'What would I want with that?' demanded the girl.
The old man paused, before he could get out the word he wanted to.
'Sanity,' he whispered.
'What do I want that for, in this madness? Close the door.'
Cherry, angry at the way he had dared speak to Signy, hissed at him, and he closed the door hurriedly and turned the pressure keys to seal her in. She waited, sitting at the bottom of the tall tank. Cherry chivvied the man, and he turned the tap that fed a sleeping gas into the little chamber.
It worked in a second. Signy slumped. Now came the part Cherry was not looking forward to – the drowning that accompanied the return to the womb. They did not dare use paralysing drugs too heavily, in case they affected the breathing response. Although Signy was asleep, her body would fight against the initial intake of liquid into her lungs. Cherry hid behind her back and peeped as the liquid crept up, over her mistress's thighs, up her waist, over her breasts. Signy twitched as it rose to her face, jerked in her deep sleep as it tickled her mouth and nose. Then, as it rose above her, she began twitching and jerking in a slow motion panic, fighting for the air that was no longer there. The tank filled rapidly. In a few seconds it was full and in ten more seconds, Signy was pumping bubbles up through the liquid. Then her neck began the characteristic puffing as she pumped the liquid in and out down into her lungs. More struggles, as the last of the air was expelled, then a slow peace descended on her as her shocked body sank into stillness. Gradually she would grow used to the liquid in her lungs. She would be allowed to regain consciousness in three or four days.
Down here, locked up once again to keep her safe, Signy would be rebuilt. Legs, of course. But she had also specified, without Conor knowing, certain other features. She wanted to be better, bigger, faster, stronger than she had been. Her bones were to be strengthened, her muscles helped with new technology. She wanted to be sterile. She'd had all the babies she wanted.
And a treat or two for Conor, too. Bigger breasts, for instance.
Cherry looked at the still girl, collapsed, ungainly, helpless and naked at the bottom of the tank. You could see parts of her that shouldn't be on show, and Cherry wanted to get in with her and make her decent. She glanced sharply at the technician, to make sure he wasn't looking where he shouldn't.
'Her orders had better be carried out exactly,' she said quietly.
'They will be, ma'am,' the old man answered. He'd done what he could. The girl could have made herself a force for good, a benevolent ruler, but it was always so with the powerful – they only did whatever they did for themselves.
He looked at the dials on the side of the tank. 'Exactly as she said,' he repeated.
Cherry nodded, happy that the man would not dare lie. She was still staring fascinated at Signy in the tank, at the thin clouds of bubbles rising from her hair and out of one tipped nostril. Tiny silvery bubbles glistened on her arms and legs and in her pubic hair. The lipstick scrawl, 'I love Mother', hung above her on the glass.
Cherry began to cry. She didn't know how she could survive two whole months without Signy to cuddle up to, without her lap to doze on. She would have the wheelchair taken somewhere safe and sleep on that, as a cat, until her mistress was ready to emerge.
22
Siggy
Muswell Hill's still a scumbag of a place to live, and it still suits me fine. The market, the criminal fraternity. They know me a bit better these days. I get out and about a bit more than I used to. I don't need to, of course. Cherry brings more than enough money for me and Mels, but I like to keep my hand in. You know the story… big fat pig, full of dripping. Conor will win the war, I suppose it's pointless really, but it does give me some pleasure pricking the feet of some of the fat bastards who benefit from his regime.
And it keeps Melanie happy.
We still have the old flat up above the market, but there's a few more hideaways these days. You need boltholes in these days of pogroms against the halfmen. Me, I only ever go out at night -my face makes a halfman of me – but bloody stupid old Melanie, I can't get it through to her the danger she's in. She's always out and about, hunting down bargains, giving handouts to anyone who asks for them. She costs a fortune. One of these days they're going to get her. And what will poor old Siggy have left in the world then? I love that fat old pig. She saved my life. She didn't have to, she was starving herself half to death for a poor old lump of meat belonging to a race that never did hers any favours. And she's taught me a lot. For one thing, that humanity doesn't have to come in human form. Melanie is more human than most people I know. More human than Conor, or Signy, or me – or Val, for that matter. There are times when the world seems to me to be built of wall to wall shit, but then I think about her. Oh, yeah, Melanie's the real thing, my fat, ugly, porky ray of sunshine.
It was February, bloody cold, foul day, the slush brown with horse shit all over the roads. Melanie was out. We'd had another row. She's always on at me to join the resistance. She's almost as bad as Signy.
'Nothing'll change without you tries,' she growled.
'Nothing's gonna change
'I'm… no… hero,' I told her, nice and clear so she'd understand.
'None of us is. So what?' she grunted, and stomped out of the house to do more good to some poor sap.
I put a vid on, lay on the sofa to watch it After about an hour or so I heard the rapping at the window, but I was feeling sulky so I just lay for half an hour listening to the little bitch rat-a-tat-tat for ages before I got up to open the window and let her in.
A little brown bird came skimming low across the floor and landed on the arm of a chair.
I said, 'Hi.'
Cherry shook herself back into herself – that's the only way to describe it. She sat sideways on the chair a moment scowling at me.
'I've been pecking away for half an hour,' she said.
'Ah…'
She was furious. She didn't say anything else, just peered sideways at me out of her tawny eyes and stalked off into the kitchen.
'I was watching a video,' I said.
She came back in with a drink and stood in front of the screen.
