Memory Seed Read Online Free PDF

was indeed an intelligent woman, yet Zinina felt sure that despite her orthodoxy there was a subversive side to the aamlon, timid perhaps, but there none the less. It was a trait Zinina could exploit... a trait Zinina wanted to exploit. She decided that, when Graaff-lin came in with the tea, she would declare her interests.
    ‘I gotta plan,’ Zinina said as they drank rose tea.
    ‘A plan?’
    ‘Well, more a mission. I need an accomplice. Honest, Graaff-lin, I’m here by accident, but I think I know how to find out about the Portreeve’s plan.’
    Graaff-lin must have been surprised, but she hid her reaction behind the soft, sad manner. ‘The Citadel,’ she mused, staring into her teacup.
    This sounded promising to Zinina. Graaff-lin, had she scruples, or at least those scruples the Citadel leaders would like its citizens to have, would have denounced the project. But she sounded intrigued. Graaff-lin closed her eyes, sat back, and seemed to go to sleep. Zinina slurped her tea, pouring more from the pot. Eventually Graaff-lin, eyes still shut, said, ‘I don’t entirely trust you, if I am to admit the truth, but I might be willing to make the attempt. We must know what the Citadel is planning. And it is true that with my pyuter skills and your street wisdom, we could make a formidable team.’
    Zinina stood. ‘Then we pierce the Citadel a week today, you and me.’
    ~
    Next morning, as the winds began to gust from the south and the rain intensified, Zinina donned her street protectives and left for the centre of the Old Quarter. At the end of Broom Street she noticed a free wall screen, flickering. There was a green patina over it in which somebody had scrawled ‘Live it up!’, but the pads were clean and smelled of alcohol, indicating usage. She tapped in a random destination address, then, having checked that nobody in the street was watching her, took a thick needle from her kit and prodded it into one of the data ports, thereby ensuring a secure line. Then she removed a small unit shaped like a snail from one pocket and eased it into the other data port. She tapped a pad and said, ‘Ready?’
    ‘Ready,’ came the synthesised voice – warbling, Zinina noticed, which meant that the wall screen was failing.
    ‘Cut into any line. Order Q.’
    ‘Ready.’
    She heard a beep, then a voice – the voice of Qmoet.
    ‘Hello?’
    They spoke in the jannitta tongue. ‘It’s Zin. No bugs or snoops?’
    The screen flashed red: all clear.
    Zinina relaxed, leaning against the screen fascia. ‘I’m safe. I had an accident, but I’m safe. I’m with an aamlon nixie-worshipper called Graaff-lin.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Cleric of the Hu Junuq.’
    ‘Is she safe?’
    Zinina paused before answering, ‘Don’t know exactly. We almost had a burglar – proper defender footpad, like. I wonder if she’s on to something? Dunno, yet. Anyhow, I’ll stay with her a bit.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie.
    ‘Be careful,’ came Qmoet’s response. ‘We don’t want to lose quality like you. So, nobody from the Citadel got hold of you?’
    ‘I think I’m free. They almost had me holed up in a house. Listen, tell Eskhatos I’m about to set up the next job – the tunnelling one. Got that?’
    ‘Yes. Anything else?’
    ‘Nah, I’ll report later,’ said Zinina. ‘I’m an indep, now, by the way, network logged and all. Hoy, how’s Ky?’
    ‘Much better. We pumped her full of antibiotics, so she’s wobbly, but alive.’
    ‘Good! Look, kiss Woof for me, eh? Gotta go. ’Bye.’
    ‘’Bye.’
    Zinina unplugged her two screen fixers and walked away, deep in thought.
    She heard singing to one side of the street. Revellers. Better jump into a doorway and sit tight. She waited. There were five or six of them, dressed in sack-cloth and ripped breeches, skin filthy, clutching empty bottles and the stalks of mushrooms they had consumed. Zinina listened to them sing.

    The Earth is fighting back, we say,
    and we are all to blame.
    The