Stone Seeds (9 page)

REPORT 3: MEDICINE

“WHAT DO YOU HAVE for me
Special
Operative Jengi?”

“Sarcasm?”

“Not at all, it's Promotion, Jengi. You
are
very special to us. What do you have?”

“That depends what you want.”

“Don't play games, Jengi.”

“Okay.” Sighs.

“Tell me about the greening.”

“The greening, eh? So you know about that?”

“We have a few friends inside Bavarnica, Jengi. Are you jealous?”

Jengi takes a long breath. He begins. “The general's latest idea to defeat the Sinta's tendency to insubordination is … memory erasures. Any slave who refuses the government ‘medicine', refuses to forget the past, is deemed an enemy of the state. The Greening, the new policy's called.”

“And how does the greening work, exactly? I mean … According to you, Jengi.”

“The greening issue divides Sinta families. It's not unusual to have one parent take their medicine, and the other parent refuse to. Forcing him or her to boil plant roots every night and scrub the green discoloration offen they selves or else be found out, greened, in the morning. It takes hours and their raw, plant-itched, complaining skin is as much of a clue to
their medicine intake as turning softly lime coloured would have been.”

“I see. That it Jengi? That all you got for me today? The greening? Something I already knew?”

“Well of course there's your hair, and the whites of your eyes. Not everything can be scrubbed with a hard brush or boiled, rubbed with plant roots.”

“I reckon not, Jengi. Is this important at all?”

“The Sinta have not yet figured out how the general's lab technicians have achieved the spores which effect this green discoloration only in the Sinta, and only in those not taking their government meds, but you can be sure that those Sinta who remember there's a problem at all are working on the solution to it.”

“And these Sinta not taking their meds … are they the Mother Cupboards whom you spake of afore? Are they the Sinta resistance?”

“No, there are only a handful of mother cupboards fully operational in Bavarnica now. It's fairly specialised work and not too many have the disposition for it.”

“I see. I heard they're calling them witches, Jengi.”

“Aye. The general is always looking for the mother cupboards, his biggest problem is that the mother cupboards reseed themselves, that's what they call it. Meaning: they're fearless and up to ten more will spring up when you mow down the one. An ancient cult of scientists, doctors, gardeners, cooks and teachers. The general has found them impossible to eradicate entirely.”

“I see. But it's a hopeless cause, that's what you reckon, Jengi? These mother Cupboards?”

“I never said that.” Jengi thinks for a moment. “Hopeless isn't the word I'd use. The mother cupboards might save us all. In about a hundred years.”

“I see. And that's too long for you, Jengi?”

“Yes. That's too long. The edge farms will be buried in the desert by then.”

“And, tell me, how is it that they plan to save anyone Jengi?”

“If they can turn the drought resistant predatory plants in the killing forest to some good use on the edge farms. Well then …”

“The killing forest? They're messing with that ungodly strip of hell. Holy Baobab, Jengi. How they even get in there, let alone come out in one piece?”

“Aye. It's dangerous. The mother cupboards ain't cowards. Cowardice weren't never their problem.”

“You don't see eye to eye with them Jengi?”

“Well. Look … Think about the killing forest for a moment. What is it? The general's man made border? Most of us just see a long, vicious, breeding, living forest-fence, but the mother cupboards see … Drought resistant plants. Mostly predatory, mind. The plants. But if the plants can be turned, is their thinking … Well then.”

“Well then what? I don't see your point Jengi.”

“If the drought resistant plants in the killing forest can be changed, turned, so they don't try to grab your throat or stop your veins flowing, pizen you in a thousand ways and can be turned into … Food. Then the edge farms can break free of Gaddys and the village shop, tend their own crops then …”

“I see.”

“Do you see? With respect … It's the key to their freedom, Sir. Food. An irony that if they pull it off the mother cupboards will be turning the general's best weapon, his damned killing forest, against him. Even killing plants can be farmed, turned, that's the creed of the mother cupboards.” He sighs. “Everything can be its own opposite. That's what the mother cupboards say and believe. But the science of turning killing things into the means for living, turning pizen into food and water … It's difficult, deadly work, Sir.”

“Again with the deadly. I sometimes wonder if you exaggerate Jengi.” There's a cough. “And what is it exactly Jengi? This … Work that you speak of?”

“The mother cupboards like Mamma Zeina have learned to get through the fence and brave the killing forest. They dig up any promising looking new plants by the roots and take them home to breed the pizen and killing out of em, make em fit to eat. Remember that they test the plants on themselves, Sir. That's important. They do tend to die younger, even if they ain't uncovered by the Egg Boys. Pizen.” He sniffs. “The thing can creep up on you.”

“So what are they after? Eating plants?”

“Right now, no. They are looking for most about any plants that are good for storing water. It is Mamma Zeina life's mission, to find such a plant. One which would supply water to the edge farmers. She may die ‘afore she sees the thing out, she's near a hundred years old and I've had my doubts she will pull it off before the edge farmers are dried bones, under six feet of desert.”

“I see. Mamma Zeina you say. She comes up quite a bit don't she? So. She getting anywhere with this … Work?”

Jengi feels his stomach drop. On an instinct, “Nope.” He says. Realises at once that he's answered too quickly, now he hesitatingly qualifies his answer. “Leastways I kindly doubt it, Sir. Sure I'd have heard something by now.”

“Relax, Jengi. Okay. You said these are women. Old women.”

“Gaddys and the OneFolks call them witches but we call them mother cupboards.”

“Yes. You said that already. And it's dangerous work you say? This bloody gardening that these witches are undertaking. Clattering about in the killing forests at night, risking meeting the Egg Men at the fence, or being greened so much they are arrested for not taking their medicine. Even on a good day, tasting pizens like they were sweeties. Testing them out on they own selves. These women sound pretty hard boiled to me, Jengi. All that sounds pretty … extremist.”

Jengi doesn't answer.

“Okay Jengi. Why am I here iffen you're not talking. Why call me at all? Are you sulking?”

Jengi clears his throat. “It is dangerous work that they're doing. If one of the modified forest creatures don't get them, or the leaches, then the too-many-small-bites from the nipping saplings will bring them down slow. Worse, if one of the general's Egg Men catch a mother cupboard illegally keeping and meddling with the nature of the plants, that will be it … They'll be dragged half alive to the long gaol in the mountain's shadow or, worse, the government laboratories under the general's great house with the moat around it. He catches about two out of three active mother cupboards, even with the mother cupboards' best efforts. There ain't no crime worser'n
gardening, in the OneFolks' village.”

“I see.” Scratch of an ancient pen, scrabbling over a scroll.

“Do you? Do you, Sir? What is it you see?”

HUNGER

MAMMA ZEINA HAS BEEN cooking in the general's kitchen all morning. She's not been paid this week and her food-ration cards are three days overdue meaning that, between the one thing and another, including an unforeseeable Egg Mens' raid of her food stores last month, the hunger almost took Mamma Zeina yesterday at the feast of the flowers fund. The general's wife will pay Mamma Zeina eventually. When she gets around to the thing, meaning whenever she happens to wake up from her pollinated stupor and finish her duties. Then, and only then, will Mamma Zeina get to eat.

The general's wife is a busy woman. She has at least three things left on her official To Do list, before she gets around to paying her slave Sinta workers their food rations. Firstly, she's to tend to the waxen flowers in the vast entrance hall, secondly, to count the heads of OneFolk babies born to the village, pat their mothers' arms serenely, coo absentmindedly and smile for the photos, and thirdly she's to choose three frocks for coronation day. This will take at least two days, without accessorising, and last of all she's to oversee the making of a new jewel encrusted bullet proof jacket which has been ordered for her by Jengi, the shopkeeper's assistant.

The general keeps his wife's schedule chocked full with things that don't matter a scrap. She works hard to keep up.

So … There's no knowing when Mamma Zeina will next eat.

This is the third day without food for Mamma Zeina, which on a regular sort of day for her means porridge made with water and sprinkled with seeds grown on her allotment, or else the root vegetables rejected from the general's wife's own kitchen as being too rough-looking, mangled or pitted with holes. Boiled by the Sinta woman until they're soupy and digestible and then eaten with the hard dry leftover oat-bread, herbs and spices, chilli peppers from Mamma Zeina's own allotment, a pinch of bartered-for salt.

This morning the general's wife, looking frail after her latest pollen over-dose, and wobbly on her stilts, had stumbled down three steps to the kitchen below stairs. Kindly insisted on throwing the kitchen's misshapen vegetables away. Pizens, she called them, slurring her words. Promising, in her over-pollinated state, to replace them with the heart shaped oranges from her own garden.

Of course the general's wife forgets these kinds of promises by morning, sneezing and waking in a haze of pollen dust. Meantime her kitchen workers have been starved for a day, Mamma Zeina for three. They'd been counting on the vegetable soup.

The rejected vegetables were immediately dragged away from the moat, pulled to the edge by giant desert rats and eaten right there on the banks.

“How those damned things got as far as the moat in the first place beats me,” Mamma Zeina wonders aloud. She examines the rat nearest to the window. Sniffs.

“These desert rat scavengers are the only creatures which seem to be able to sneak around the border fences.” She gazes at Zorry. Scratches her chin thoughtfully. “Them and the
oversized, fattened up edge farm crows.” She points upward with her short, square index finger. “They fly over the fences just as t'other goes under it.” She muses. “The only two sets of critters that can work on both sides of the fence. Lest you count Jengi, of course.” She scratches her head. She's thinking.

Mamma Zeina and Zorry eye the critters through the kitchen window. There's a desert edge farm rat the size of a large domestic cat or a medium sized dog. The rat is squinting at the kitchen window in a quite unnerving manner just now. Zorry notices that it has huge jaws and long fanged grey-tipped teeth, an extra long pointed nose which droops a little at the tip. Apparently old and slow, a little mangy, distracted by gnawing at the tough root vegetable between its front paws, the critter allows itself to be cornered by two wild dogs.

The carrot is being stuffed into the rat's pouched cheeks when it's pounced on. And then dragged in two opposing directions, twists and scuffles, objects, and is torn into two still-wriggling pieces by the OneFolk village pets. Zorry notes that the larger dog is more scratched and bitten up than its small ally, which stops and swallows down its half of the rat's body, in just two or three struggling gulps. Now it's moving forward menacingly toward the second dog. The second great curling-haired beast of a dog ends up with just the giant rat tail, which it grips gormlessly by the end, and the huge tail goes on waving slowly in its pug mouth. The smaller dog comes back in a bit, takes that off him too. Like an afterthought. “These ‘show' pets are pretty useless.” Zorry turns.

“Zorry.” Mamma Zeina says gently. Pulling the girl away
from the kitchen window.

Zorry looks up. She finds herself shocked by Mamma Zeina's appearance. She looks deathly. Her mouth is a blueish grey line, her eyes set deeper into her skull and the overall appearance is gargoyle-like, “Mamma.” Zorry catches Mamma Zeina before she falls. Supports her and then lets a wooden chair by the sink take the strain.

“Mamma Zeina, take my ration,” hisses Zorry, “You're faint with hunger.” She struggles to pull some oat bread from her left front apron pocket.

Mamma Zeina looks down at the dry bread wryly. She doesn't move to take the girl's food ration from her. “I haven't come to that. You can kindly strangle me your own self,” she says fiercely, “before I'll take food from a growing youngster.”

“Mamma Zeina …”

Mamma Zeina rises to her feet. Winces.

Mamma Zeina has had nothing but a squirt of milk stolen from a cow's teat this morning. Crossing the Egg Mens' land on her way to work in the early light of the old sun, even the Egg Mens' steel trap farms can be beautiful before curfew breaks. Curfew when the general's luminous sun takes away the shadows, the soft filtered light through the branches of the border trees.

The cows aren't afeared of Mamma Zeina, on account of she sings harmonious Sinta curses as she goes. Poems of the dead. Mostly the cows prefer rhythms and lilts, she advises her Sinta neighbours. Soft, bewildering upturns in the word-music. But you have to be pretty hungry to risk it nonetheless. One missed note and the cow could take your head clean off at the neck, such eating isn't for the faint hearted.

Mamma Zeina has learned that predictable patterns sooth the cows' reptile brains best. Makes the cows peaceable enough to milk. No mean feat since the reckoning era, when the cows were injected with DNA from an ancient and more savage strain of cow, combined with a Komodo dragon. The cows are now meat eaters since last season. Wide sharpened teeth, claws for hooves, milking them by hand is no joke, as the general intended. The modification coming after a rash of hungry Sinta thieves had diminished the OneFolks' milk supplies. Mamma Zeina has, of course, found a way around the problem, but drinking milk in the reckoning era comes with a health warning.

And there was that piece of fruit Mamma Zeina stole last night too. The heart shaped novelty blood orange which the general's wife was always promising to share with her kitchen workers and somehow never quite did. Being caught in the orange garden could have been trouble for Mamma Zeina.

“What's that on your ankle?” Zorry asks.

Mamma Zeina looks down.

There are sores on Mamma Zeina's ankles from the nipping saplings in the killing forest last night. Gnaw marks around her bulging ankle veins.

Mamma Zeina was so excited last night by a new find, another plant which can hold enough water in its leaves to quench the thirst of a child for one day, before replenishing itself overnight, that stooping in the darkness to uproot it, she'd taken about a hundred small nips to her left ankle from the nipping saplings which grew protectively around it. And that was just whilst examining the thing, pulling it up by its roots before it closed up its leaf claws and took a hold of her
wrist. She had got it into her gauze sack and heard it wrestling with the thick cloth, held it away from her body's soft parts.

Mamma Zeina hadn't even felt the large, and extremely poisonous, killing forest leech which dropped softly from a mossy branch above her and, as she struggled with the water storing plant, the leech had secreted itself down the back of Mamma Zeina's collar, on the left side. Dangerously close to her jugular vein. It has been using its liquid sap to thin her blood all day.

Mamma Zeina would have noticed both the plant-itch and the stinging sensation at her throat if she hadn't been already so distracted by the pain of her hunger, and last night's stomach churning pizen experiments on herself. She briefly glanced down at the small sore developing on her left ankle this morning, promised herself she would tend to it later then … The old woman simply forgot. At one hundred years old, Mamma Zeina has so many aches and pains that it was easy to miss something that was important.

Looking down now, Mamma Zeina sees that the red sore that she barely noticed this morning has grown darker and is spreading out black roots from the point of ‘infection'. One root just above the sore is already thick as a thumb and moving up slow and steady, in its vine-like way, along the back of her leg. Making its way toward her carotid artery, sniffing out essential organs, following a trail to the heart where it's evolved to cut off her blood supply, stop her heart. It will use her remains then for compost. A small but highly predatory plant.

Mamma Zeina feels her legs rolling under her. Shoots a hand out, takes a hold of the handle of her steel serving trolley.
On an instinct puts the other hand to the side of her throat and pulling away the swelling leech. Then, with the expertise of a woman whose spent every single night of the last year navigating the killing forest in darkness, she examines its underside. Sees at once that the creature's poison sacs are depleted.

Mamma Zeina, with her knowledge of plants and insects, understands her situation right away. She might've been able to handle the plant or the pizen but not both. Not together.

She's got three minutes, maybe two and maybe less.

She has two things to do first:

Give the root of the promising plant to her immediate underling, and that's Zorry.

And then get outside as fast as she can.

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