Part 15 (1/2)
”Owen, did you have a mother?””Don't make fun of me. Everyone has a mother.”
Mada didn't think it was time to tell him that she didn't; that she and her sibling batch of a thousand revolutionaries had been autoflowed. ”Hold out your hand.” Mada scooped up an ant. ”That's your mother.” She crunched it and dropped it onto Owen's palm.
Owen looked down at the dead ant and up again at Mada. His eyes filled.
”I think I love you,” he said. ”What's your name?”
”Mada.” She leaned over to straighten his cape. ”But loving me would be a very bad idea.”
all that's left Mada was surprised to find a few actual books in the library, printed on real plastic. A primitive DI had catalogued the rest of the collection, billions of gigabytes of print, graphics, audio, video, and VR files.
None of it told Mada what she wanted to know. The library had sims of Egypt's New Kingdom, Islam's Abbasid dynasty, and the International Moonbase-but then came an astonis.h.i.+ng void. Mada's searches on Trueborn, the Utopians, Tau Ceti, intelligence engineering and dimensional extensibility theory turned up no results. It was only in the very recent past that history resumed. The DI could reproduce the plans that the workbots had left when they built the library twenty-two years ago, and the menu The Devil's Apple had offered the previous summer, and the complete won-lost record of the Black Minks, the local scatterball club, which had gone 533905 over the last century. It knew that the name of the woman who died in Merrymeeting was Agnes and that two years after her death, a replacement baby had been born to Chandra and Yuri. They named him Herrick.
Mada waved the screen blank and stretched. She could see Owen draped artfully over a nearby divan, as if posing for a portrait. He was engrossed by his handheld. She noticed that his lips moved as he read.
She crossed the reading room and squeezed onto it next to him, nestling into the crook in his legs.
”What's that?” she asked.
He turned the handheld toward her. ”Nadeem Jerad'sBurning the Snow . Would you like to hear one of his poems?”
”Maybe later.” She leaned into him. ”I was just reading about Moonbase.”
”Yes, ancient history. It's sort of interesting, don't you think? The Greeks and the Renaissance and all that.”
”But then I can't find any record of what came after.”
”Because of the nightmares.” He nodded. ”Terrible things happened, so we forgot them.”
”What terrible things?”
He tapped the side of his head and grinned.
”Of course,” she said, ”nothing terrible happens anymore.”
”No. Everyone's happy now.” Owen reached out and pushed a strand of her hair off her forehead. ”You have beautiful hair.”Mada couldn't even remember what color it was. ”But if something terrible did happen, then you'd want to forget it.”
”Obviously.”
”The woman who died, Agnes. No doubt her friends were very sad.”
”No doubt.” Now he was playing with her hair.
~Good question,~subbed the s.h.i.+p.~They must have some mechanism to wipe their memories.~ ”Is something wrong?” Owen's face was the size of the moon; Mada was afraid of what he might tell her next.
”Agnes probably had a mother,” she said.
”A mom and a dad.”
”It must have been terrible for them.”
He shrugged. ”Yes, I'm sure they forgot her.”
Mada wanted to slap his hand away from her head. ”But how could they?”
He gave her a puzzled look. ”Where are you from, anyway?”
”Trueborn,” she said without hesitation. ”It's a long, long way from here.”
”Don't you have libraries there?” He gestured at the screens that surrounded them. ”This is where we keep what we don't want to remember.”
~Skip!~Mada could barely sub; if what she suspected were true . . .~Skip downwhen two minutes.~
~.minutes two downwhen Skip~ . . . true were suspected she what if ;sub barely could Mada~!Skip~ ”.remember to want don't we what keep we where is This” .them surrounded that screen the at gestured He ”?there libraries have you Don't” ”.here from way long, long a It's” .hesitation without said she ”, Trueborn” ” ?anyway, from you are Where” .look puzzled a her gave He ”?they could how But” .head her from away hand his slap to wanted Mada ”.her forgot they sure I'm, Yes” .shrugged He ”. them for terrible been have must It” ”.dad a and mom A”.said she ”,mother a had probably Agnes” .next her tell might he what of afraid was Mada; moon the of size of the was face Owen's ”?wrong something Is”
~.memories their wipe to mechanism some have must They ” .s.h.i.+p the subbed~,question Good~ .hair her with playing was he Now ”.doubt No” ”.sad very were friends her doubt No .Agnes ,died who woman The” ”.Obviously” ”.it forget to want you'd then ,happen did terrible something if But” . was it color what remember even couldn't even Mada
She wrapped her arms around herself to keep the empty dimensions from reaching for the emptiness inside her. Was something wrong?
Of course there was, but she didn't expect to say it out loud. ”I've lost everything and all that's left isthis .”Owen s.h.i.+mmered next to her like the surface of Rabbit Lake.
”Mada, what?” said the s.h.i.+p.
”Forget it,” she said. She thought she could hear something cracking when she laughed.
Mada couldn't even remember what color her hair was. ”But if something terrible did happen, then you'd want to forget it.”
”Obviously.”
”Something terrible happened to me.”
”I'm sorry.” Owen squeezed her shoulder. ”Do you want me to show you how to use the headbands?”
He pointed at a rack of metal-mesh strips.
~Scanning,~subbed the s.h.i.+p.~Microcurrent taps capable of modulating post-synaptic outputs. I thought they were some kind of virtual reality I/O.~ ”No.” Mada twisted away from him and shot off the divan. She was outraged that these people would deliberately burn memories. How many stubbed toes and unhappy love affairs had Owen forgotten? If she could have, she would have skipped the entire village of Harmonious Struggle downwhen into the ident.i.ty mine. When he rose up after her, she grabbed his hand. ”I have to get out of hereright now .”
She dragged him out of the library into the innocent light of the sun.
”Wait a minute,” he said. She continued to tow him up Ode Street and out of town. ”Wait!” He planted his feet, tugged at her and she spun back to him. ”Why are you so upset?”