Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

Nicola Griffith

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A first novel winner in 1993 of both the James Tiptree, Jr.

Memorial Award & the Lamda Award for lesbian science

fiction & fantasy

Ammonite is a marvelous blend of high adventure andmind-boggling social speculationit marks the arrival of NicolaGriffith as a new sf star for the 90s.

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Marghe awoke to dawn and hard-edged thoughts. The compass damage might be as temporary as her proximity to the standing stones; there was only one way to find out. She dragged her pack through the tent flap, stood and stretched, and looked around.

Fear slapped the breath back into her lungs.

She was surrounded by riders on motionless horses. Shrouded in mist, they looked like apparitions or otherworld demons. Marghe lifted her arms to show she was weaponless and walked stiffly toward the nearest figure.

The rider snapped down her spear.

Stranger, why do you stand in the ringstones of the Echraidhe? The penalty for soiling the stones of our ancestors is death.

The spear moved as the rider balanced it for a belly thrust. Fascinated, Marghe watched the point pull back for the disembowelling stroke

A Del Rey Book BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright 1992 by Nicola Griffith

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-97048

ISBN 0-345-37891-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: February 1993

For Kelley, who fills my life with grace.

Acknowledgments

This is a first novel. It took a while to get to this point. I want to thank the following people for their help along the way: Lyall Watson, from whose Gifts of Unknown Things I borrowed ideas; the students and teachers of Clarion 88; David Pringle; my sisters, Julie and Carolyn and Anne; all those who have helped in their various ways with my struggles to stay in this country, especially Peter Pautz, Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight, Lisa Goldstein, Stan Robinson, Tim Powers, and Jim Blaylock; Fran Collin; Ellen Key Harris; and all the people who put up with my tirades,, they know who they are.

Special love and thanks go to:

Carol Taylor

for all those years of faith, love and encouragement and

my parents, Margot and Eric Griffith,

for everything.

MARGHES SUIT WAS still open at neck and wrist, and the helmet rested in the crook of her left arm. An ID flash was sealed to her shoulder: Marguerite Angelica Taishan, SEC. The suit was wrinkled and smelled of just-unrolled plastic, and she felt heavy and awkward, even in the two-thirds gravity of orbital station Estrade.

She stood by the airlock at the inside end of A Section, The door was already open. Waiting. She rested the fingertips of her right hand on the smooth ceramic of the raised hatch frame; it was cool, shocking after two days of the close human heat of A Section.

The sill of the airlock reached her knees; easy enough to step over. No great barrier. The lock chamber itself was two strides across. The far door was still closed, sealed to another sill, like this one. Four steps from here to B Section. Four steps. She had recontracted with SEC, endured six months of retraining on Earth, traveled eighteen months aboard the Terragin, and spent the last two days on the Estrade bumping elbows with the three-member crew, all to take those four steps.

Well, Nyo and Sigrid say good luck, but theyll be out there for hours yet, fixing the satellite. Sara Hiam unclipped her headset. The slight, small woman with the atrophied muscles and club-cut dark blond hair was matter-of-fact, using her doctor persona. In the two days since she had come aboard Estrade, Marghe had learned that Hiam had several distinct facets to her personality, facets she rotated to face any given situation. It was a survival tactic, one way Hiamand Sigrid and Nyohad managed to spend five years up here without going mad. Marghe knew there was a great deal of the doctor she had not seen; she wondered what the real Sara Hiam was like.

Life support is up and running in Section D, Hiam said. Are you ready?

Adrenaline, faster than conscious thought, flooded through Marghe and she had to discipline her breathing, decreasing her pulse and respiration rate, slowing blood flow and reducing the sudden over-oxygenation of her long muscles. Her face pinked as the capillaries under her skin reopened; her muscles stopped fluttering. It was a routine learned long ago.

Im ready.

Very well. Hiams voice was suddenly more measured, formal. Im obliged to remind you that the vaccine FN-17 now offered is still considered experimental. I also remind you that once you have taken it and once you step beyond this airlock, you will under no circumstances be allowed back into Section A: nor, whether or not you proceed as planned to Grenchstoms Planet, will you be allowed to enter any other uncontaminated Company installation until you have undergone extensive decontamination procedures. She sounded as though she was reading from a screen prompt. These procedures consist of

I know what they consist of, Marghe said. She pulled on gauntlets, closed her wrist seals. Was it her imagination or did the air coming from the lock smell different?

This is a taped record, Marghe. Let me finish. These procedures consist of: isolation; the removal of all subjects blood, marrow, lymph and intestinal flora and fauna and its replacement with normal healthy tissues; reimmunization of subject with all bacterial and viral agents commonly found in Earth-normal human population; prior to return to home planet, further isolation at a location to be decided upon to determine the efficacy of said reimmunization. Do you understand these procedures?

Yes. The lock was small but, unlike the rest of what she had seen so far of Estrade, blessedly uncluttered.

Further, I remind you that although FN-17 is a development of the Durallium Company, the Company in no way holds itself responsible for any adverse effects that may result from its use.

Nor, though you are to be offered the utmost cooperation aboard Estrade and on Grenchstoms Planet, are you to be considered an employee of said Company liable to the financial restitution available to indentured personnel. Is this clear?

Yes. She closed her neck seal, hefted her helmet. Thats everything?

Yes.

Will you help me with this? She should have put the helmet on first; the gauntlets made her clumsy.

When the helmet and shoulder ring clicked together, the suit air hissed on. It tasted hard and flat, not like the warm, re-breathed air of the orbital station. She tongued on the broadcast communications. Can you hear me?

I hear you. Hiam checked a workstation screen. Youre reading well enough.

She looked up. You?

Loud and clear. Through the audio pickups Hiam sounded even more remote and doctorlike. And then the only sound was Marghes own breathing and the faint hiss of the forced air. Blue and purple readouts flickered in the lower left of her vision. Everything worked perfectly. There was nothing else to wait for.

Marghe stepped over the sill. Her boots clumped and echoed in the bare chamber, and her breath sounded loud. She touched the amber light on the control panel; the door slid shut. Hiam, arms folded, was visible through the small observation window.