Silkpunk and Steam Page 23

  “Forbidden or not, it’s what must be done. The only way to teach you to steal is by practicing together. Because we are both women, we will break more taboos to do so.” She set a snare that had fallen out of a tree and nodded to a collection of limp greens at the base. “Collect those for the stewpot.”

  I knelt to pull up the greens. “And that doesn’t bother you? You aren’t afraid it will make you only desire women?” I bit my lip, wondering if this would change me. Perhaps I would become crazed like a male chiramantep scenting a female during mating season.

  “That’s just superstition.” Tomomi’s tattooed lip stretched and thinned as she smiled. “Memory exchange can’t make you fall in love with the person you share with, nor can it change what sex you desire. Either it’s in you or it isn’t. A woman who wishes to perform memory exchange with a woman usually does so because she already feels desire.”

  That’s not what Shiromainu had said and he was very wise.

  I wanted to ask how she knew. Had she tried memory exchange with both men and women? That would have been rude to ask. Instead, I said, “I don’t know how to steal memories.”

  “That is why I must teach you,” she said.

  “When?”

  “We shall start today.”

  “And if Shiromainu Nipa still doesn’t come? It will all be for naught?”

  “Hush. You ask too many questions.”

  After setting snares, we sat in a little grove of bushes that had been sheltered from ice and snowfall by a black tree stump. Tomomi took out a chunk of memory moss and spat on it. She crumbled it in her fingers. The season was too cold to fully undress. Instead, I folded back my manto and pulled up my tunic and attush so Tomomi could reach my lower back.

  She gave me a small memory from her youth playing with sticks. Even as a child she’d been skilled. Her opponent had been another young woman with more tattoos than she had. As the memory slipped away, I found myself thinking of our fighting practice the day before.

  Taishi had been watching and said—I blinked my eyes open. I couldn’t remember what he’d said. The memory was gone, not in the way one might forget a detail, but the whole memory from the previous day had disappeared. She’d stolen my memory!

  “Iya!” I turned around, excited to tell her it had worked.

  “Have a care not to get moss on your clothes,” she scolded.

  I took a handful of dried leaves and rubbed it against my back. My limbs were heavy with fatigue as they often were after memory exchange. I could have fallen asleep, but I was too excited.

  “How did you do that? Is it my turn to try with you?” I lowered my tunic and manto.

  Tomomi didn’t answer. She was sprawled across a bed of purple ferns dozing. Gently, so I wouldn’t disturb her, I wiped away the memory moss from her hands. As tired as I was, I set more snares so she could sleep.

  I had plenty of time to learn memory stealing.

  Or so I thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Tatsujin were known to be the fiercest warriors and, rumor had it, masters of memory exchange. No one trusted the Tatsujin at the meeting of the seven tribes. I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s possible someone from one of these tribes may have stolen my memories, but I’m not certain of it. I’m not certain of anything.

  —excerpt from the diaries of Felicity Earnshaw on the New Campton Manor Space Station

  Tomomi was a master of memory stealing.

  If Taishi noticed how Tomomi Sensei made me hunt with her more than she did with him, he didn’t comment on it. We practiced on clear days when the breath of wind only contained a hint of the receding winter’s chill.

  I didn’t know what to expect from a memory thief other than what Tomomi Sensei taught me. She’d give me one of her memories and then take one of mine. She was masterful in the way she selected her own to make me think of something related. I tried the same technique with her, but it was hard to draw memories out of someone. It felt as though I were trying to make water flow uphill. There was a reason the person sending a memory put their hands on the other person’s torso. The heart liked to be given the memories before the mind, or that’s what Tomomi Sensei said.

  With Tomomi’s method, someone wouldn’t know their memories were being stolen. They would think they were being given memories. Instead of asking me to place my hands on her to give memories, she put her hands on me as though she were going to give her own memories.

  It took me a dozen hunting excursions before I caught a flicker from Tomomi’s mind in this way. When I did, it wasn’t a gracefully planned memory I’d manipulated her into thinking. It was the time when she’d gotten blue pear ink for tattoos into her mouth when she’d come of age and threw up the sour mixture. I could still taste the tart burst on my tongue when I opened my eyes. Tomomi cackled at the expression on my face. I suspected she’d planned to give me that memory on purpose.

  “How did you learn memory stealing if it’s forbidden?” I asked.

  “It was taught to me long ago. It was a skill of my people, though not one that made us well-liked.” She licked her lips as if considering her words carefully. “My former nipa stole the memories of another nipa to gain her knowledge. He was a bad man, turned strange after he allowed a kasha kamuy to enter his body.”

  “A kasha kamuy?” I asked. I had seen the kamuy in the Tanukijin palace when I’d followed Petennouk. I knew my village once had a sacred place with a protective spirit as well. Something about that tickled my mind, but I couldn’t remember it.

  “Yes, Unyanke Nipa was given a token by the kasha kamuy of our sacred place. She gave him a bracelet that brought him great knowledge and power and turned his heart black. He could kill others with light like the gaijin do. Many worked together to stop him and his evil ways. Even after he was dead and I cut the bracelet off his arm, it continued to twinkle like stars. We burned it with his body and buried the remains.”

  I trembled as she told me this story. If the kasha kamuy of the Tanukijin village had given Petennouk such a bracelet, surely he could have killed us all.

  If I’d been worried I might fall in love with Tomomi from memory exchange, I was convinced by now there was no risk of it. I felt closer to her and I respected her, but I didn’t lust for her.

  “I can’t wait to try this on Faith-san,” I said.

  She held up a finger in warning. For the briefest of moments, she reminded me of my late mother. “Be careful in your eagerness. You need to hone your skills more before you try this.”

  Perfecting the art of stealing memories was painfully slow. Any day now I imagined Shiromainu Nipa would return. At least, I hoped he would.

  When I was finally ready to steal a memory, I waited until Faith lay in bed. She shifted uncomfortably on the dirt floor.

  “Your muscles must ache after all the skinning we did today,” I said.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me. “It’s more that I’m like the Princess and the Pea.” She yawned. She’d told us that story before, only the children had substituted a chiramantep stone for the pea because they didn’t know what a pea was.

  I shifted the tanuki manto down from our chins and rubbed her shoulders. “Tell me a story,” I said. “The one about the time you and Felicity-san tried to shoot the gaijin’s ship from the sky.”

  “I’m too tired tonight.”

  “Just a short version. Why did you think you would be able to overpower the enemy ships?”

  She yawned again. “I didn’t. Felicity did. She was naively optimistic.”

  I slipped the crumb of memory moss from under the bedroll and rubbed it against my palms. It was fresh enough it didn’t need to add water to make it into a paste. If Faith asked, I would say it was for her muscle aches.

  I said, “It’s funny that you are a gaijin but you were fighting other gaijin. These men were from that other tribe? The British tribe?” The prickle of memory moss against my hands grew as my hands
warmed her skin.

  “Indeed, you could say that.” She paused and then went on. “My parents were of two different tribes. My mother was born American while my father was born British. The British tribe is divided into territories, each with a nipa. One nipa among the British is Lord Archibald Klark of the East Milky Way Trading Company. He controls much trade and commerce and seeks to control this planet. He was the one behind the attacks, not the surveyors or the colonists we occasionally encounter—though some of them work for him and they’re just as bad. Lord Klark is a greedy scoundrel who would keep the entire planet for himself if he could.”

  “How do you know this man?” I asked.

  “My father spoke about him. After his death, Felicity and I spied on him with Taishi to see what he was after. He’s the one who attacked during the meeting of the seven tribes. If he can annihilate the people on your planet before the British and American government know what he’s about, he can claim the planet as unoccupied and can purchase it in its entirety. This is all probably very dull to you. I doubt you understand any of this.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. I imagined the pictures that accompanied these words flowing into me. Where my hands kneaded into her flesh, warmth surged forth into me like a current in the water of an onsen. A ripple of pins and needles surged up my arms.

  Faith gasped and I feared she knew what I was doing. A second later my fear evaporated as the memory surged into me and I lost awareness of the present. I was her, stifling hot in the many layers of clothes in the heat. Yet there was no doubt in my mind I needed my drawers, petticoats, chemise and dress to preserve my modesty.

  I stood in a large metal chamber, buttons and lights flickering and flashing. Gears whirred in the wall and clunked. I stared through a scope, watching the spacecraft in the sky descend from orbit and swoop down overhead. We would see to it that Lord Klark never set foot on this planet again. If there was anyone who could undo our people’s wrongs, it was Felicity with her clever book learning.

  My sister nodded, her smile grim. She wore a Jomon attush instead of our American style dresses. Her blonde curls were piled on top of her head. She refitted the chiramantep stone inside the laser. If she was right about this, the weapon would shoot down the very ship that carried Lord Klark. She would end his tyranny.

  My world went black. Faith exhaled and so did I. She inhaled and I did so at the same time. We were joined by the thread of the memory moss, gluing together our bodies and minds. I leaned my cheek into her hair and inhaled her scent of fire smoke and the spicy sweet perfume of memory moss.

  Her breathing was shallow. She didn’t stir. Did she know what I’d done? The memory wasn’t much and I would have to take another, but I didn’t know if it would work when she was asleep. Even if it did, I didn’t know if I had the energy for it. I wiped the green stickiness away from both of us and then snuggled up to her.

  I had a rash on my hands the next day from not wiping it off well enough, though.

  While hunting I told Tomomi Sensei what I’d stolen.

  “The memory you describe is not enough. You need to steal another,” Tomomi said. “And don’t try when she’s sleeping. You aren’t skilled enough for that.”

  “Are you?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  Faith shrugged me off when I next tried to give her a massage. She must have known what I’d done. I worried she’d hate me and think me a horrible friend. A week later when I tried again, she said, “Off-worlders aren’t used to Jomon subtlety. If you keep offering to rub my shoulders because you’re the one aching from practice fighting with Tomomi, all you need to do is to say so.”

  “Oh,” I said, uncertain if this was a ruse or she meant such a thing. “It would be rude to ask for a shoulder rub.”

  “So if I ever wish you to help me with my hair or sit for my drawings, must I wait for you to read my mind and offer? Really, sometimes tradition can be so tiresome.” She nudged me until I rolled over.

  “You are my elder,” I said. “You don’t need me to offer. It’s expected you will tell me, ne? If I wish you to pour my tea, though, I must pour yours first.”

  She muttered about the silliness of it. Faith and Shiromainu both scorned tradition, yet they both had their own they were locked into.

  Faith rubbed my shoulders until I purred like a chiramantep drunk of flower nectar. Her touch was more satisfying than memory moss. I was so relaxed I might have drooled. If only I could get her to do this more often.

  I still hadn’t gotten a better memory out of her, but I didn’t mind this diversion.

  My brother shook me early in the morning. The cave was quiet and dark except for the fire painting the walls with flickers of gold.

  “Nani? What is it?” I asked with a groan. “It isn’t my turn for watch today.”

  He glanced at Faith and Michi still asleep. Suddenly, I feared I was in trouble.

  His tone was formal. “Your immediate presence is requested by Shiromainu Nipa.”

  I sat up with a start. His eyes were crinkled with concern. He didn’t have his chiramantep eboshi over his face yet, and I could see where the wrinkles of his blankets had indented against his face, a testament to him having just been woken as well.

  I looked around, but I only saw one Tanukijin. He was clad in the purple-green furs of his tribe. His name was Horiuchi and I’d remembered liking him because he had never laughed with Petennouk when he’d made jests.

  “Where’s Shiromainu Nipa?” I asked.

  Taishi cleared his throat. “He is ill and wishes to see you one last time before he dies.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  At first I doubted Miss Felicity Earnshaw could truly have been impaired to the extent that she would have no memories of her family’s death, though now I have come to believe this is true. It is my hope that by continuing to keep Miss Earnshaw in my custody, she might confide the secrets of the red diamonds from Planet 157, which would be profitable to us both.

  —excerpt from hyperspeed message from Lord Archibald Klark

  “Iya! Ill?” Panic seized me in its claw. This was why he hadn’t come—illness, not dismissal.

  Taishi placed a hand on my shoulder. “Will you go to him?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Tomomi sat with the Tanukijin warrior beside the fire, drinking a bowl of hot broth. Dark circles ringed his eyes like the spots that would be on a tanuki’s face. Horiuchi rose and bowed when I approached.

  Tomomi was dressed for travel. She waved a hand at me. “Dress yourself, Sumiko-chan. It is cold out there.”

  Whether it was the rider’s fatigue or Tomomi’s desire to see her leader one last time, she accompanied me on the chiramantep instead of the rider who’d come. He remained behind.

  As we set out, I noticed the path Tomomi took. “Aren’t we to travel west? I thought the off-worlders made settlements that way. Last time, Shiromainu Nipa said this route was safe no longer.”

  “Horiuchi-san told me to take this way. We are lucky the foreigners squabble amongst themselves and set fire to their own settlements. No one lives between our tribes’ villages anymore.”

  This made me think about what Faith had told me about the warring tribes in the stars, the British and Americans.

  The journey took a few hours by chiramantep. The land was flat and barren along the way. Only when we came to the canyon where the river cut through the ancient rock did I see the red, purples and greens of the jungle stretching on for miles below. As we neared the Tanukijin village, warm arm air rose from hot springs. Wisps of mist rose and blocked some of the sight below from view. I couldn’t see the cliff palace yet, but we were close.

  Tomomi found a slope for us to descend. The path was steep and even though I had traveled this way before on a chiramantep, I was afraid to look down. Tomomi rode as easily as she might ride across a meadow. I fixed my gaze on the box-like palace peekin
g through the mist. It teased me like the remnants of a dream upon waking.

  People greeted us at the village, but without the easy smiles as they had the year before. The air of the Tanukijin village was heavy with sorrow. I feared we’d come too late.

  “Is Nipa alive?” I asked one warrior on the way to the chiramantep stable.

  “He waits for you.” He took the reins of our beast. “Go inside. I’ll put away your beast.”

  I would have liked to rush to Shiromainu Nipa as soon as I arrived, but Tomomi made me bathe and eat hot stew first. One of the grandmothers brought us to Nipa’s room and left us. The smell of the room hit me in a wave: the pungent medicines, the fetid stench of urine, and sickness hung heavy in the air.

  Shiromainu lay on his bedroll, his breath coming out in labored rasps. It made my own chest ache to hear the way he struggled.

  His head turned to me and a wan smile tugged at his lips. “My little wife has come at last.”

  Forgetting all formalities, I rushed forward and dropped to my knees. I took his hand in mine. That not being enough, I hugged him. Carefully, I placed my arms around him, as though he were a doll made of fern husks, since he looked like he might break.

  Tomomi cleared her throat behind me. I extricated myself from his feeble frame, bowed and said, “I am honored to be requested by Shiromainu Nipa. How may I serve the leader of the Tanukijin?”

  “Please, we are in my chamber. You do not need such formalities, anata.” His body trembled and he convulsed in a fit of coughing that left him panting like an injured tanuki.

  I smelled urine and the idea he might have lost bladder control horrified me. I couldn’t look at him, but not looking at him meant he would know I knew. I made myself gaze into his face.

  My breath caught in my throat. “Anata? What can I do to ease your suffering?”

  A moan was his only answer. It broke my heart to see him this way. I glanced over my shoulder at Tomomi, pleading at her with my eyes to ask what I should do.