The Memory Thief Page 5

  “Now you’ve done it. You’ve ruined everything, haven’t you?” Captain Ford hiccupped. I scooted Meriwether’s cup out of his reach.

  The leader put up a hand and the crowd silenced. “We do not force our women, nor would it be our way to force yours. It must be your decision, not his.”

  Meriwether placed an arm around me. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. He wants you in exchange, doesn’t he?”

  I blinked. “How did you know?”

  Meriwether straightened. “I’m a businessman. I know how such matters work. One never gives something for nothing. Am I right? Fret not. When my father said we were to do anything in order to acquire the mines he wanted, he didn’t mean this.”

  If there was anyone who was close to knowing what I’d been through, it was my fiancé. He understood why I wanted to come—and he knew my greatest fears. I leaned into him, appreciating his astuteness.

  Sumiko worked her way through the crowd toward us. She stopped before me, extending a hand. I shook my head. “I do not consent.”

  She crouched before me and took my hands in hers, pleading in her eyes. “A private word with you, Felicity-san.” She used the polite honorific for a woman following my name. “It will take but a moment and then you are free to join your party. Yes?”

  Drumming started up. Scantily clad dancing men and women rose to their feet. Meriwether’s jaw hung open as he watched a couple gyrate in dance. He was so naive it was almost endearing. He glanced up from the performers, to me and back to the entertainment.

  “I’ll be right back. I hope,” I said.

  She led me past the shrine and out of the hall. The drumming grew distant as I followed her through a drafty corridor. The only light came from the glow of a fire in one of the rooms up ahead. Sumiko beckoned me to follow her into a room. I halted in the doorway when I saw the man, his brawny arms crossed as he stared into a fire. He wore the Tanukijin mask like the others, but I recognized his confident demeanor. As I came closer I noted the striped blue and white pattern of his belt, confirming his rank as headman.

  He didn’t look up. “A word with you.”

  I hadn’t even seen him slip from his throne. The dancers had served as distraction as well as entertainment.

  Sumiko bowed her head and retreated to the other side of the room, busying herself with laying out their spoils of newly acquired guns, clothes and tools they had no idea how to use.

  I stood, waiting. Questions burned within me but it was the Jomon custom that rank dictated who spoke first in such a meeting as this.

  The firelight and our proximity afforded a better view of the leader’s aspect. The muscles of his athletic physique bunched with tension. Only his lower profile was visible under the mask of the headdress. What I saw might have been considered attractive had he been smiling. Between his grim expression and the horns catching the light on his tanuki mask, he instead looked like a monster.

  He turned to me. His lips parted as if he wished to speak, but no words were forthcoming. As an afterthought, I lowered my eyes and bowed.

  “Have you anything to say to me?” he asked in Jomon.

  I wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. I considered the events of the day. “I apologize for the impulsiveness of our party that led to the death of your warrior. I am sorry to hear of the destruction you have experienced at the hands of foreigners.”

  He frowned. He gave no apology for killing a dozen men from my party.

  I asked, “Have you anything to say to me?”

  “If it pleases you, I wish to make a deal with you,” he said in my own language, though in the same formal tone used to indicate respect and diplomacy. His accent was heavy, but I understood his words. If anything, he spoke better than I did in his language.

  It shouldn’t have surprised me he spoke English. It made sense a leader of a planet that had become a recent hot spot of mining would have need to learn it.

  I bowed my head, the customary gesture of politeness and respect, using the same formal tone. “Pardon me. As much as you honor me with your request, you have nothing to give me that is worth my virtue and honor.”

  “Virtue and honor?” He repeated the words as if confused. “What do these words mean?”

  “Virginity.” My face grew hot and I hoped he didn’t see my embarrassment. “To sleep with a man for the first time. Among my people it is a kind of taboo to have an unwed woman.” My voice grew hoarse and every inch of my being screamed that I was a liar. But Lord Klark had impressed upon me the necessity of not speaking of my past and the way I’d been violated. Even if I didn’t care about bringing a scandal upon myself, I had to consider how it would affect Meriwether’s reputation. I had no idea how a Jomon would react to my past. It had been too long since I’d been here last.

  For the first time, Nipa turned to stare, his formality being exchanged for astonishment. He was young for a leader. If what I saw of the creases around his mouth and the hint of wrinkles at his eyes were accurate, I guessed in his late thirties or early forties.

  In the corner, Sumiko giggled. The headman shook his head sharply. She caught herself and apologized for her rudeness. Apparently his wife also understood more English than she let on.

  I tried to keep my voice neutral as formality dictated, but it grew high pitched with emotion. “The concept is foreign for you, I know, but it has great value to me. To my people, behaving so cavalierly with one’s sexuality is not something women are permitted to do.”

  The headman retreated along the perimeter. He picked up a small metal object glinting in the firelight. Probably my pocket watch. My heart sank lower.

  “Your headman says you are here for trade. I know that is not why you are here. You know our language. You know our ways. You have been to my planet before, ne? I also know you had something stolen from you that you value. I will return what you seek.”

  I held my breath. How did he know? Was it obvious half my soul was missing, my absent memories leaving a hole cut from my heart that only a Jomon would recognize?

  I stepped closer, swallowing the lump in my throat. “How can you help me? How can you know what I seek?”

  He continued farther from me, picking up another object and returning the first. At first I didn’t think he saw me step closer, then it crossed my mind that he might not want to stand too close to me. I didn’t remember this custom. Mayhap it was a Tanukijin formality. I couldn’t believe I’d thought of myself as an expert on the planet’s natives.

  “I know where she is,” he said.

  As he glanced at me, he must have seen the bewilderment on my face.

  “Your sister,” he said.

  A sudden cry erupted from my throat. I covered my mouth as if I could stuff the pain back inside. I swallowed the tears and calmed myself. It was a long moment before my voice worked again. “You’re lying. My sister is dead.”

  From the fur pouch at his belt he removed a folded piece of paper. He opened it and held the paper out to me. On it was a crayon drawing of the jungle, plants and flowers depicted in vivid colors that only an artist could capture. FE was signed in the corner. Faith Earnshaw.

  I shook my head. “Anyone could have drawn this. Anyone who found her crayons. And it’s too advanced for her skills.”

  “Too advanced for the child you left, but not a young woman. This was drawn by Faith-san.”

  He could even say her name correctly. I wanted to believe my sister lived. Imagining her as an adult filled my heart with so much longing, I couldn’t imagine refusing him. I folded the paper up and held it out to him. “If my sister is alive, you will show her to me first and then I will agree to your conditions.”

  He shook his head at the paper I held out to him. “She is too far. I will bring Faith-san to you after you agree and the weather is clear. You need only consent to the wife-swap. I will not take your virtue. We will only trade memories.”

  It was hard to say which I valued more, my virtue or my memories. I unfolded the paper
and stared at the drawing again. I had come here to retrieve one lost treasure, only to be offered another.

  Chapter Three

  Upon arriving on an unexplored planet, it is important to look for signs of native alien life and colonists from the first era of spaceflight to make sure the planet isn’t already inhabited. For details on classification, if you believe you have found a native tribe, skip to page 238.

  —The Guidebook of Colonization and Interplanetary Relationships

  The Jomon were one of five groups of colonists that had originated from Earth, emigrating to far away worlds during the first era of spaceflight millennia ago. As time passed, we had lost contact with these peoples and their advanced technology. Only in the last hundred years had we regained knowledge of space flight and ventured out of the solar system again, establishing space stations along abandoned hyperjump ports the first colonists had left behind.

  British explorers, as well as those from the United Worlds of America, had found relics of pyramids and temples on planets and asteroids from the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian cultures. They discovered living descendants of Meso-American and African cultures on three inhabited planets.

  Thirty years before the arrival of our party, the Nina and Pinta had probed the planet, found the poles teeming with oil, and commenced drilling. They had also put in word to the space stations that the mountains were rich with minerals waiting for prospectors to mine. The Santa Maria was sent by the commissioner of new interplanetary acquisitions of the United Worlds of America to determine whether the planet was habitable. My father cared far less about buying a share than my mother. It was through her persuasion that my father agreed to come to the newest discovered world, as they were interested in investing in the planet, should it be a good place to settle.

  I was twelve and my sister ten when the Santa Maria landed on the unclaimed planet. Our ship carried scientists and surveyors who were to determine Planet 157’s resources and potential for colonization. My mother had died two years before landing and my father, still grieving, busied himself in his work, having no time or heart to mind two daughters.

  “Stay near the ship and don’t go past where you can be seen,” Father said, not looking up from his surveying maps outside the ship.

  Every day for a month, Faith and I whined and pleaded to be allowed outside the ship. After the crew’s numerous expeditions found no dangers and few animals in the jungle that could harm us, my sister and I were given more freedom to explore—so long as we stayed in earshot of the ship.

  Faith and I sat in an enclosure of purple fern-like plants laced with bright yellow flowers, watching small avian creatures flutter from flower to flower. Their wings lacked feathers and they resembled the bats of Earth more than birds. The long noses that slurped up nectar from the red dots in the center blossoms made me think of the elephants in my electronic books. Faith sketched the brightly colored “nose birds,” as we decided to call them, while I made lists and descriptions to accompany Faith’s drawings.

  Something rustled through the brush. The nose birds made excited yips and skittered off at the sudden movement. Faith and I exchanged annoyed glances, expecting it to be one of the ship’s crew, probably looking for us—though no one called our names or chastised us for once.

  We ducked lower into the purple leaves of our secret alcove, not wanting anyone to find our special hiding nook. A shape leapt over the ferns and into our miniature clearing, nearly tripping over us. It was a boy, clad in plants. With his bronze skin, purple leaf skirt and red dots painted over his naked arms and chest, he looked more like the flowers around us than like a human.

  He stared at us dumbfound and we silently stared back. I had never seen a nearly naked boy before, and I was quite in shock. The first surveyors had said no one inhabited this world anymore; all that remained of the long-gone colonists were ruins. It took a moment to register that the boy held a pointed stick in his hand. I tugged my sister behind me. I was about to scream, but he threw his spear aside and dropped to his knees in front of us. He bowed, said something that we didn’t understand, and waited. He performed the gesture again and repeated himself.

  “Do you think we’re supposed to do the same?” I asked.

  Faith bowed and tried to repeat the gobbledygook he said. The boy fell back onto his bottom laughing so hard he nearly flipped over his skirt. I repeated the words I thought he’d said and this made him laugh even more. His laughter was infectious and soon we were all laughing. His eyes were almond-shaped and turned into crescents hugging his round cheeks when he smiled. Though his face was chubby, his frame was lean and wiry. I didn’t know anything about boys, but I found him to be adorable in his aspect as well as his mannerisms.

  With some trial and error, we found out his name was Taishi. He showed us how to drink nectar from the flowers and which berries were safe to eat. He gave my sister a pretty red pebble from a satchel at his belt and me a slightly smaller one.

  “We need to give him something in return,” I said. It wasn’t that I was trained in the art of diplomacy, or that I had extensively studied the guidebook of etiquette for the original five peoples of Earth who had set out to colonize various worlds. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

  I had nothing of interest in my pockets. Faith had a dried ration of nutrient bar.

  She whispered, “If he takes one bite of this he’ll probably think we’re trying to poison him.”

  We tore our drawings from our sketchbooks and offered them to him instead. He took them, bowed and ran off. We were so excited, we ran off as well. Wouldn’t our father be pleased! Surely this discovery was as important as any of his.

  “Guess what, Poppy, guess what!” Faith said, tugging on his sleeve as he sat with the crew.

  “Not now. We are discussing important matters.”

  “But we have to tell you the most exciting news. We met a person in the forest today,” I said.

  “I haven’t time for your stories about imaginary friends,” Father said in his coarse British accent.

  Faith pouted. “It isn’t like the cargo bay beast we made up. This is real.”

  I tugged on my sister’s hand and steered her away.

  When we next saw Taishi, he beckoned us to follow him deeper into the forest.

  “What if we get lost?” Faith asked.

  I studied the confident smile of the boy. If he had found us again, he must have known his way around the forest. “We’ll be fine.”

  “But Poppy said we have to stay in sight of the ship,” she insisted.

  “As if he’ll take notice,” I said. No one had time to bother with children. Even the ship’s robot, formerly operating under nanny mode, was now programmed for collecting specimens and analyzing data.

  Taishi, growing impatient, skipped into the trees without us. I lifted the hem of my skirt and petticoats to follow, ignoring how it showed off my calves. Faith ran after us.

  We skirted along the edge of the stream. Taishi pointed out the green and purple tanuki foraging along the water banks. If not for their horns, they might have been cute. The animals native to the planet were so much brighter and more interesting than the Earth animals we’d often heard about.

  Taishi cupped his hands to his mouth and made a low whistle-like call. The animals lifted their heads and wagged their striped tails. They whistled in response. Faith and I tried to do what he did, but we ended up scaring them away.

  He guided us to the edge of the jungle mesa where many streams from the uphill slope gathered into one as they fell from the cliffs. A herd of the furry bear-like creatures with tusks and giant teeth grazed in the meadow at the bottom of the waterfall. We had been to the ridge once before with the scientists, but they had told us not to approach the beasts since they had charged when the captain’s men descended into the valley. The animals weren’t able to leave the valley, and we had never tried going down. I hesitated when Taishi showed us how to descend the rocky ledge. In some places, steps were c
hiseled, in other places the outcropping of rocks appeared natural.

  “We’ll get in so much trouble,” Faith said. “They told us we can’t go where the big animals are.”

  I nudged her with an elbow. “That’s why we aren’t going to tell.”

  “But what if we get hurt?”

  “We won’t.” My confidence must have calmed her because she followed me down.

  At the bottom of the cliff, the air smelled pungent. Animal musk hung heavy in the air. Taishi rubbed his hand with red flowers until powder covered them and motioned for us to do the same. He slowed his buoyant step as he snuck up to the large fuzzballs. My heart thundered at the folly of this idea, but Taishi was so certain of himself, it was hard to imagine he didn’t know what he was doing. One of them sniffed the air and stomped closer. It licked his hands and nuzzled his side. Before long they were doing the same to Faith and me. Taishi lifted Faith onto one of the animals and led her around to ride it.

  Taishi pointed to the animal. “Chiramantep,” he said.

  After more gesturing, we decided this must be the name of the beasts. Chiramantep was better than “great, blue fuzzball,” as we called them. We rode on their backs, and our new friend showed us how to make them obey us. They only listened if you tamed them with flowers and they grew accustomed to your scent. Chiramanteps weren’t at all dangerous if they liked you. If they didn’t, they might gore you to death and then go into a blood rage, killing anyone else with you. But I didn’t know that at the time.

  Over many months, he taught us the words for all the plants and animals around us. I tried to teach him our words but there were so many I didn’t know how to explain. What we couldn’t express in words, I drew in pictures. Faith was so much better at that. He actually could tell what she’d drawn.

  Every day we ventured out together, learning more and sharing each other’s language. I tried to ask Taishi, “Only you? Other family?” I hated the idea of him being all alone on this planet. There weren’t supposed to be any survivors of tribes on this world.