Silver Skin Read online

  Rab frowned. ‘Are you sure it’s my size? It’s starting to look small.’

  ‘What? Oh, don’t worry. It will individualise to you when you put it on. It’ll fit you like a second skin.’

  Exactly like a second skin.

  ‘I have to be naked?’

  ‘Of course,’ said his Com. ‘The suit needs to make a perfect seal with your skin in order to function properly. It draws energy from your specific electrical field, for one thing, and for another, the cloaking mechanism is extremely finely tuned – even a millimetre out of alignment and it starts to fluctuate.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Look at it this way – would you rather have a suit which makes you invisible, or one that leaves a pair of underpants walking about in history? I’m not at all sure Queen Victoria would approve.’

  Rab was tempted. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘No, of course not. Don’t be silly. The suit just wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  He put it on. It was perfectly comfortable, and when he checked in the mirror, it covered him in mistiness up to the neck, while his head remained perfectly in focus.

  ‘You won’t be properly invisible until the helmet is on. That comes out of the suit when you press the button on the arm panel, there. The only tricky bit is making sure you keep your eyes open, otherwise you’ll be stuck with them shut. Since anything touching your eyes makes them blink automatically, you’ll need to apply a short-term response paralyser to your eyelids …’

  ‘But won’t my eyes dry out?’

  ‘No,’ said his Com. ‘The suit provides lubrication as required. I can explain how, if you’d like …’

  ‘No! No, that’s all right,’ said Rab, reaching for the paralyser and applying it to the outer corners of his eyelids.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ muttered his Com. ‘Now press the helmet initiator on your arm panel … Here it comes!’

  Rab felt something cool, almost like liquid, rising from the neck of the suit, up under his chin and onto his face, but as it covered his mouth and nose he couldn’t help struggling for breath.

  ‘Calm down – just breathe normally.’ He could hear his Com’s voice through the helmet’s earpiece. ‘The helmet draws oxygen from the surroundings, cleans it, and expels carbon dioxide as you breathe out. There, the seal’s complete … It’s not bad now, is it?’

  And, really, it wasn’t. Rab found that once he stopped thinking about breathing, he could do it just as if he weren’t wearing anything over his face at all. He moved his arms experimentally and walked up and down a little.

  ‘This is great!’ He could speak without difficulty.

  ‘Right. Now, you’ll be able to move about without being detected, as long as you’re careful not to knock into anything – or anyone. Remember, the Non-Intervention Contract’s no joke. You can observe but you cannot interact. The clause on fines – well, put it this way, you’ll be living in your mother’s clothes closet from now to eternity and still be in debt. Oh, and remember you won’t be able to eat or drink anything while the suit’s sealed, or, um, excrete anything either, but since the recommended first session is no more than two hours, that shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘I know, I know – are we ready?’

  ‘There are more checks we really should do, this being our first go …’ But the longing in his Com’s voice was clear.

  Rab grinned and with a big theatrical flourish, he brought his right arm up and over, finger heading for the control panel on his left forearm, and –

  – a high-pitched whistling sounded in his ears – his vision blurred – he felt his stomach drop –

  The blurring before his eyes cleared abruptly and Rab found he was squinting into bright sunlight – and the floor had disappeared! He was suspended high in the air over an enormous expanse of sparkling sea. He yelped and reached for something to catch hold of, but there was nothing there to grab.

  His Com sighed in his earpiece. ‘What did I say? Test stop, mid Deluvian, remember? Time moves around you, not the other way around, so if you start out 56 floors up in a tower stack and you go back to a time before the stack was built …?’

  ‘Yeah, all right. I forgot. This is – this is amazing …’

  The Deluvian Period had taken place during the height of the ocean rise, when the part of the Northwest Europasian continent that he lived in – would live in! – had been completely submerged.

  ‘Look!’

  Floating settlements undulated on the silvery winter swell below him like vast mats of seaweed, anchored to the mountains lying out of sight under the surface.

  ‘Can’t we go in closer?’

  But his Com was already humming to itself in the way it did when it was happily engaged in calculations.

  ‘Not today, not today. Here we go again … 19th century … 1850 …’

  The blurring returned. Rab thought, And next there’ll be the I–just–lost–my–stomach thing and the whistling and then …

  He swore. ‘SCUT! Com? WHAT—?!’

  This was different – this was worse – much, much worse – the whistling was rising higher and higher, louder, a shriek that clawed at his ears – there was a blinding flash – a jolt that made his teeth rattle in his head – the shriek became a roar – Rab tried to shield himself but his arms wouldn’t move. Just at the edge of hearing, he could make out his Com crying, ‘This isn’t right – this isn’t supposed to—’ From nowhere something grabbed Rab in an enormous fist and squeezed, hard, so hard he felt his bones grind on one another and his eyes bulged and all the air rushed out of his lungs. His mouth opened and closed uselessly, like a stranded fish – darkness began to swallow him up – then, as if from far away, he heard his Com screaming into the black,

  ‘WE’RE GOING DOWN – 19TH CENTURY – MAYDAY – MAYDAY—’

  Cait: Late Stone Age, Bay of Skaill, Orkney

  The sea fog was thick as wet wool. Cait turned back towards the village with a sigh. As she climbed the dune, the marram grass sliced at her legs and the gathering bag on her back leaked cold and wet.

  She sniffed the damp air. The world was changing. It had rained all summer until the grain didn’t even bother trying to grow or ripen, but just went straight to rotting in the field. And now the dark days had come again. It felt as if they’d only just left.

  There was whispering in the village.

  ‘Is it true?’ little huddles of villagers murmured, looking over their shoulders. ‘The times have never been so cruel – can you remember, ever? – not ever. They say the Sun is fading. Dying. What have we done? What can we do?’

  The Old Woman heard the whispers too, but she just grinned her humourless grin and spent more time with the Old Chert’s bones up at the cairn on the headland that overlooked the bay. She ate so little now she was starting to look like a corpse herself. Cait watched. She knew something was going on in the Old Woman’s mind. She saw something. Oh yes, there was definitely something humping and twisting under the surface, but she didn’t know what it was. And Voy – the Old Woman – wasn’t talking. Well, not to her at least.

  Cait flicked her wet hair away from her face. The world was changing all right. Except, it wasn’t changing much for her. If she looked back or forward, all she could see was more of the same. Working for the Old Woman. Wanting to be away.

  She pulled a face.

  It felt so good, she pulled another – a horrible cross-eyed, mouth-twisting, tongue-poking face.

  ‘This is what I think of you, Voy! And this! And THIS!’ She dropped the bag and used both her hands to make the rudest gestures she knew. She pulled down her breeches and waggled her buttocks in the direction of the village, and when that got too cold she pulled them up again and did a wild I hate you dance up and down the dune for good measure.

  As soon as she was back with the others, none of this must show in her face. But here, no one could see her. No one could hear her. It was as satisfying as scratching a midgie
bite till it bled. She kept it up until she was out of breath.

  Oh well.

  She was just bending for the bag, ready to swing it onto her shoulder again …

  … when she heard it.

  A high-pitched whistling that made her instantly crouch, her legs tensed under her and her heart beating hard in her throat. Where? It sounded as if something were dropping out of the sky – there! Out in the bay. It hit the water hard. Cait strained her eyes but the fog was as impenetrable as ever.

  She half-uncurled, poised to run, but there was silence now over the bay. The tide was coming in as a greasy swell in the still air. There wasn’t a breath of wind to stir the white mist.

  Sounds can travel strangely in fog. Maybe it was a sea bird, diving after fish. But she knew that wasn’t right – no sea bird would be out fishing in weather like this. She shivered – but she didn’t leave.

  The fog condensed on her hair and trickled down her neck like cold fingers.

  I’ll wait till the tide’s at the turn. It wouldn’t be long now. And if nothing happened by then, she’d run every step of the way back to the village and say she’d heard killer whales spouting in the bay. With a fog this thick no one could prove she hadn’t. I heard them – a whole pod, it sounded like – spouting and splashing! She rehearsed what she’d say in her head, getting the tone just right. Voy might beat her for not coming back to tell them sooner, but not as hard as she would if she thought Cait had just been shirking work. Or doing rude dances on the dunes …

  She felt how her heartbeats had slowed again. Maybe it was stupid to stay even until the turn. Just asking for trouble. It wasn’t as if the Old Woman needed an excuse to hit her. Especially since Gairstay, the Old Chert, died. She acted liked that was Cait’s fault too but it wasn’t. It wasn’t! She’d done everything she could. She’d done everything Voy’d told her, everything she’d taught her, but the old man had just got iller and iller –

  There!

  Splashing.

  Not killer whales, but splashing nonetheless. Something out in the bay, beating at the water, flailing, coming closer to shore. Her senses focused in on the sound. It felt wrong – it didn’t belong. Animal? Bird? Fish? She listened – sniffed – she opened her mouth in case there was any tang in the air she could taste – there was something … it was odd … she didn’t have any words for it …

  Cait froze.

  She could see it now, swirling the fog at the surface of the swell, dragging itself through the shallows, out onto the sand of the beach, and then …

  … it pulled off its face.

  Rab: Bay of Skaill

  Rab was choking on panic, thrashing, desperately trying to clear away the horrible grey blurring of the air. He began to claw at the helmet, managing at last to drag it away from his face, but it made no difference. He was blind.

  I can’t see! I can’t see! Why can’t I see? Behind the beat of that fear, other questions clamoured for his attention. Com? Where are you? Talk to me! Where am I? What’s happened? Why can’t I hear you …

  And then all the words in his head disappeared as his arm burst into flames.

  Cait: Bay of Skaill

  Even before the thing came blundering out of the sea and onto the sand, a word was forming in Cait’s mind like a shiny pebble –

  Selkie.

  One of the Fey. The First People.

  Everyone understood that humans shared the islands with kelpies, trows, banshees, ghouls. You knew where you were with humans but the Fey were tricksy and erratic, hard to predict and impossible to control.

  And none more so than a selkie. A seal that could shed its silver skin and walk on land in human form. She knew from the stories how beautiful they were – how seductive – how whoever saw a selkie dancing on the shore was entranced, so that they couldn’t bear the thought of it returning to its seal shape. They would steal its skin and hide it and for a time, everything would be well (better than well – ownership of a selkie’s skin was a clear path to every luck and all prosperity) and the selkie would forget it had ever had any other form or home. Then, as sure as the sea beat on the shore, the wonderful new life would fall apart. The selkie would find its skin and vanish back into the waves, the days of good fortune and happiness disappearing with it.

  Cait knew the stories – always starting with the luck, always ending with disaster. Anyone with any sense would think twice about walking into a story like that. Anyone with any sense would be running for the village this very minute and never look back.

  Cait grimaced, made the sign against evil with her fingers, and crept closer along the ridge of the dune.

  The selkie had collapsed on the sand. Even through the fog she could see the wetness gleaming on its strange, silvery skin. It was making ghastly, gasping noises. Then, impossibly, smoke began to rise from one of its limbs …

  The scream it gave as it burst into flames made her heart flinch.

  This can’t be right! This can’t be the way it happens!

  The selkie was clawing at its silvery pelt, peeling it away, whimpering, frantic. It was skinning itself, like a rabbit carcass, right in front of her.

  She wanted to help the creature – put it out of its agony – but she made herself pause for a heart beat.

  Be smart for once in your life. Leave it – leave it –

  Cait rose to her feet …

  Rab: Skara Brae

  Was he being carried? Why was he being carried? Such a long way – was it a long way? – the pain made him drop in and out of consciousness. Until, suddenly, he realised that the jolting had stopped. He was lying on his back in a dark, malodorous, smoky place.

  Faces hung over him, drifting in and out of focus, grotesque faces that blurred and swirled and went away again.

  ‘Who are you?’ he whimpered. ‘Why won’t you help me?’ The pain pulsed with each beat of his heart – a horrible, ugly, angry red – how can it have a colour? The smell of burnt flesh – his burnt flesh – made him retch but he had nothing left in his stomach – it felt as if it were his own insides he was trying to throw up.

  ‘It hurts! It hurts!’

  And then he remembered – he remembered this. Pain. He’d felt pain before. Once, when he was just a kid, he’d been showing off in an exercise class. He’d managed to fall awkwardly and broke his collar bone. His Com had him anaesthetised within the minute, and the bone was healed by the next day, but those seconds of agony had haunted him for weeks afterwards. Long, long seconds before the wonderful relief came – where was the relief? – and this pain was worse – much, much worse – and it was filling his whole body and the room and the world and it wasn’t going away …

  ‘Why doesn’t it stop?’

  And all they did was make the place he was in so hot he could hardly breathe and move him when he couldn’t bear to be moved and gibber and speak nonsense he couldn’t understand.

  ‘Hot … too hot …’

  Meanwhile the download shunt, placed under his scalp when Rab was a baby, was busy collecting language clues and ambient speech patterns, feeding them into its analytical database, collating, extrapolating, easing nouns and verbs and grammar and nuance into spare neural pathways. It was working furiously to give him a whole new language.

  It was an exceptionally clever programme that the citizens of Rab’s world had in their heads. The only question now was, would it have enough time to finish its task, or would the shock and growing infection and rising fever in Rab’s body kill him first?

  Cait: Skara Brae

  The selkie groaned, thrashing restlessly in the bed box, disturbing the heather under the hide. Cait squatted on her heels, watching him, unconsciously rubbing the scratches on her legs.

  She’d done everything she could think of. She’d bathed the burn with warmed sea water, applied crushed henbane leaves, dressed the selkie’s arm with the fluff from the puffball fungus, given him bitter willow bark for the fever … Voy watched every move from the shadows, cradling her crippl
ed hands, her eyes sharp – eager – for Cait to make a mistake. Now there was nothing left to be done. It was up to him, his strange body, and how strong his will was to survive.

  She reached over to touch the pretty dark curls on his head, and felt the fever heat coming from him. If it didn’t break soon, even will would have little to do with it.

  Cait sighed.

  She glanced over to the shelves where the spirit stones were kept and her thoughts fell into the old grooves. Four carved stones, where there should be five. One stone missing, all the years of her life …

  If he does die, will Voy put HIS spirit in a stone and keep it to take with the others to the Ring? What were the rules that determined the fates of the Fey? Did Voy even know? Perhaps they don’t have spirits. Perhaps they ARE spirits.

  ‘Pay attention!’ snapped Voy.

  The selkie had thrown off the coverings again. He was muttering plaintively and though she couldn’t catch the sense of his words, it was clear he was asking for something. Or someone. It must be the seal language. She’d heard their wailing before.

  The feeling of guilt lodged in her throat, making it hard to swallow.

  I should have left you by the sea, not told anyone about you. The other selkies might have come for you, if I hadn’t interfered.

  His own people would know how to make him better.

  The burn on his arm continued angry and red. Streaks of inflammation ran up towards his shoulder and down into his hand. Familiar signs of infection, and yet …

  It was the strangest wound she had ever seen.

  Even Voy had been taken aback. She’d stared at the marks the fire had made on his skin for a long time, turning the selkie’s arm roughly this way and that in the lamp light. He’d struggled weakly to get away from her, but she paid no attention, peering closely at the red inflamed pattern, as if she were trying to draw something important from it.