Nancy Kress - The Flowers of Aulit Prison

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The Flowers of Aulit Prison

by Nancy Kress

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First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, October/November

1996

Fictionwise Contemporary

Science Fiction

Nebula Award Winner

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My sister lies sweetly on the bed across the room from mine. She lies

on her back, fingers lightly curled, her legs stretched straight as elindel

trees. Her pert little nose, much prettier than my own, pokes delicately into

the air. Her skin glows like a fresh flower. But not with health. She is,

of course, dead.

I slip out of my bed and stand swaying a moment, with morning

dizziness. A Terran healer once told me my blood pressure was too low, which

is the sort of nonsensical thing Terrans will sometimes say -- like announcing

the air is too moist. The air is what it is, and so am I.

What I am is a murderer.

I kneel in front of my sister's glass coffin. My mouth has that awful

morning taste, even though last night I drank nothing stronger than water.

Almost I yawn, but at the last moment I turn it into a narrow-lipped ringing

in my ears that somehow leaves my mouth tasting worse than ever. But at least

I haven't disrespected Ano. She was my only sibling and closest friend, until

I replaced her with illusion.

"Two more years, Ano," I say, "less forty-two days. Then you will be

free. And so will I."

Ano, of course, says nothing. There is no need. She knows as well as

I the time until her burial, when she can be released from the chemicals and

glass that bind her dead body and can rejoin our ancestors. Others I have

known whose relatives were under atonement bondage said the bodies complained

and recriminated, especially in dreams, making the house a misery. Ano is

more considerate. Her corpse never troubles me at all. I do that to myself.

I finish the morning prayers, leap up, and stagger dizzily to the piss

closet. I may not have drunk pel last night, but my bladder is nonetheless

bursting.

* * * *

At noon a messenger rides into my yard on a Terran bicycle. The bicycle is an

attractive design, sloping, with interesting curves. Adapted for our market,

undoubtedly. The messenger is less attractive, a surly boy probably in his

first year of government service. When I smile at him, he looks away. He

would rather be someplace else. Well, if he doesn't perform his messenger

duties with more courteous cheer, he will be.

"Letter for Uli Pek Bengarin."

"I am Uli Pek Bengarin."

Scowling, he hands me the letter and pedals away. I don't take the

scowl personally. The boy does not, of course, know what I am, any more than

my neighbors do. That would defeat the whole point. I am supposed to pass as

fully real, until I can earn the right to resume being so.

The letter is shaped into a utilitarian circle, very business-like,

with a generic government seal. It could have come from the Tax Section, or

Community Relief, or Processions and Rituals. But of course it hasn't; none

of those sections would write to me until I am real again. The sealed letter

is from Reality and Atonement. It's a summons; they have a job for me.

And about time. I have been home nearly six weeks since the last job,

shaping my flowerbeds and polishing dishes and trying to paint a skyscape of

last month's synchrony, when all six moons were visible at once. I paint

badly. It is time for another job.

I pack my shoulder sack, kiss the glass of my sister's coffin, and lock

the house. Then I wheel my bicycle -- not, alas, as interestingly curved as

the messenger's -- out of its shed and pedal down the dusty road toward the

city.

* * * *

Frablit Pek Brimmidin is nervous. This interests me; Pek Brimmidin is usually

a calm, controlled man, the sort who never replaces reality with illusion.

He's given me my previous jobs with no fuss. But now he actually can't sit

still; he fidgets back and forth across his small office, which is cluttered

with papers, stone sculptures in an exaggerated style I don't like at all, and

plates of half-eaten food. I don't comment on either the food or the pacing.

I am fond of Pek Brimmidin, quite apart from my gratitude to him, which is

profound. He was the official in R&A who voted to give me a chance to become

real again. The other two judges voted for perpetual death, no chance of

atonement. I'm not supposed to know this much detail about my own case, but I

do. Pek Brimmidin is middle-aged, a stocky man whose neck fur has just begun

to yellow. His eyes are gray, and kind.

"Pek Bengarin," he says, finally, and then stops.

"I stand ready to serve," I say softly, so as not to make him even more

nervous. But something is growing heavy in my stomach. This does not look

good.

"Pek Bengarin." Another pause. "You are an informer."

"I stand ready to serve our shared reality," I repeat, despite my

astonishment. Of course I'm an informer. I've been an informer for two years

and eighty-two days. I killed my sister, and I will be an informer until my

atonement is over, I can be fully real again, and Ano can be released from

death to join our ancestors. Pek Brimmidin knows this. He's assigned me

every one of my previous informing jobs, from the first easy one in currency

counterfeiting right through the last one, in baby stealing. I'm a very good

informer, as Pek Brimmidin also knows. What's wrong with the man?

Suddenly Pek Brimmidin straightens. But he doesn't look me in the eye.

"You are an informer, and the Section for Reality and Atonement has an

informing job for you. In Aulit Prison."

So that's it. I go still. Aulit Prison holds criminals. Not just

those who have tried to get away with stealing or cheating or child-snatching,

which are, after all, normal. Aulit Prison holds those who are unreal, who

have succumbed to the illusion that they are not part of shared common reality

and so may do violence to the most concrete reality of others: their physical

bodies. Maimers. Rapists. Murderers.

Like me.

I feel my left hand tremble, and I strive to control it and to not show

how hurt I am. I thought Pek Brimmidin thought better of me. There is of

course no such thing as partial atonement -- one is either real or one is not

-- but a part of my mind nonetheless thought that Pek Brimmidin had recognized

two years and eighty-two days of effort in regaining my reality. I have

worked so hard.

He must see some of this on my face because he says quickly, "I am

sorry to assign this job to you, Pek. I wish I had a better one. But you've

been requested specifically by Rafkit Sarloe." Requested by the capital; my

spirits lift slightly. "They've added a note to the request. I am authorized

to tell you the informant job carries additional compensation. If you

succeed, your debt will be considered immediately paid, and you can be

restored at once to reality."

Restored at once to reality. I would again be a full member of World,

without shame. Entitled to live in the real world of shared humanity, and to

hold my head up with pride. And Ano could be buried, the artificial chemicals

washed from her body, so that it could return to World and her sweet spirit

could join our ancestors. Ano, too, would be restored to reality.

"I'll do it," I tell Pek Brimmidin. And then, formally, "I stand ready

to serve our shared reality."

"One more thing, before you agree, Pek Bengarin." Pek Brimmidin is

figeting again. "The suspect is a Terran."

I have never before informed on a Terran. Aulit Prison, of course,

holds those aliens who have been judged unreal: Terrans, Fallers, the weird

little Huhuhubs. The problem is that even after thirty years of ships coming

to World, there is still considerable debate about whether any aliens are real

at all. Clearly their bodies exist; after all, here they are. But their

thinking is so disordered they might almost qualify as all being unable to

recognize shared social reality, and so just as unreal as those poor empty

children who never attain reason and must be destroyed.

Usually we on World just leave the aliens alone, except of course for

trading with them. The Terrans in particular offer interesting objects, such

as bicycles, and ask in return worthless items, mostly perfectly obvious

information. But do any of the aliens have souls, capable of recognizing and

honoring a shared reality with the souls of others? At the universities, the

argument goes on. Also in market squares and pel shops, which is where I hear

it. Personally, I think aliens may well be real. I try not to be a bigot.

I say to Pek Brimmidin, "I am willing to inform on a Terran."

He wiggles his hand in pleasure. "Good, good. You will enter Aulit

Prison a Capmonth before the suspect is brought there. You will use your

primary cover, please."

I nod, although Pek Brimmidin knows this is not easy for me. My

primary cover is the truth: I killed my sister Ano Pek Bengarin two years and

eighty-two days ago and was judged unreal enough for perpetual death, never

able to join my ancestors. The only untrue part of the cover is that I

escaped and have been hiding from the Section police ever since.

"You have just been captured," Pek Brimmidin continues, "and assigned

to the first part of your death in Aulit. The Section records will show

this."

Again I nod, not looking at him. The first part of my death in Aulit,

the second, when the time came, in the kind of chemical bondage that holds

Ano. And never ever to be freed -- ever. What if it were true? I should go

mad. Many do.

"The suspect is named 'Carryl Walters.' He is a Terran healer. He

murdered a World child, in an experiment to discover how real people's brains

function. His sentence is perpetual death. But the Section believes that

Carryl Walters was working with a group of World people in these experiments.

That somewhere on World there is a group that's so lost its hold on reality

that it would murder children to investigate science."

For a moment the room wavers, including the exaggerated swooping curves

of Pek Brimmidin's ugly sculptures. But then I get hold of myself. I am an

informer, and a good one. I can do this. I am redeeming myself, and

releasing Ano. I am an informer.

"I'll find out who this group is," I say. "And what they're doing, and

where they are."

Pek Brimmidin smiles at me. "Good." His trust is a dose of shared

reality: two people acknowledging their common perceptions together, without

lies or violence. I need this dose. It is probably the last one I will have

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