And we were off.
The first bit was straightforward enough: Both Flora and Hugh Renois had visited Medical for examinations, and I had both reports in my hand explaining that the fertility limits we implemented on all bodies had reversed themselves in what seemed to be random chance. If the couple had never crossed paths with each other, we’d never have known anything about it. “It’s possible this is more frequent than we realize,” I said, “so I’ve asked theFairweatherto add this to the list of things we check for during a passenger’s annual physical.”
“Have the controls been reinstituted?” one Board member demanded from beneath a bristling mustache.
“We have made the request,” I said, preserving the parents’ medical privacy.
He harrumphed but didn’t press further.
“When she found out she was pregnant, Flora Tilburn surprised herself and decided to keep the baby,” I went on. “She stopped updating her memory-book—not wanting the ship to learn of the child’s existence—and moved outinto an apartment on Forward Port Six. She gave birth alone.”
One of the Board members made a horrified sound.
“She maintained a correspondence with her former roommate, Mrs. Anne Godfrey, and at one point visited a man she erroneously believed to be the father. But most of her days were spent with her son, whom she called Florian—and because she loved the flickers and wanted to share them, she asked her friend’s son, Norris Godfrey, to build her a skimmer of her own.
“This, it turned out, is what killed her.”
Behind me, Anne gasped.
I turned to see Flora’s cheeks had gone pale, and her knuckles were white where her hand clutched Anne’s.
I softened my expression but not my volume, wishing I could have presented this next fact to her more privately. But I couldn’t risk it getting out before the hearing. “Flora Tilburn spent hours every day using a skimmer that had been altered to slowly wipe away any memory she tried to project. She believed she needed more practice as a projectionist, because the images seemed cloudy and vague to her. But the more she focused on those memories, the vaguer they got. Until they started to vanish altogether. One by one, piece by piece, her memories—the very stuff of her life—were chipped away. Eventually the strain was toogreat, and she suffered a fatal stroke while out one day in a clothing shop. She was reembodied, but it had been five months since she updated her memory-book. Her memories of her son were gone.” I reached into the podium and pulled out Flora’s diary in its blue cloth cover, and set it on the evidence table before me. “At the time of her death, she was keeping a physical diary. Her early entries are detailed and specific, but later ones are baffled and confused. She knew something was wrong—but she didn’t know she’d been so deeply betrayed by a friend.”
“Who?” Anne demanded.
“Yes, who?” asked the Chair.
“Norris Godfrey,” I replied. “I call him now for questioning.”
Heads swiveled to look at him.
Norris didn’t look at all surprised, only resigned, as he walked forward and took a seat in the broad wooden witness chair. His cool face chilled further at the faces turned his way. Then he sneered at Peregrine, of all people, fussing innocently in my nephew’s protective arms. “I suppose he’s already told you everything.”
“My nephew?” I asked.
“Thebaby.”
We all looked at the infant, and then back at Norris. But the man seemed to be serious. “Of course he has,” I said, papering over my astonishment with pure, artificialconfidence. “But we will require you to fill in the gaps anyway, Mr. Godfrey. What did you have against Flora?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said.
“And yet you tried to erase all her memories of your mother.”
“I had to,” he said, and that sneer returned in full force. It was an ugly expression, the kind that no amount of physical beauty could overcome. Hugh Renois’s nose wrinkled to see it, and Flora actually flinched away. “Just because she meant no harm doesn’t mean no harm was done. She is a flighty, frivolous soul who only lives for flighty, frivolous entertainment. Absolutely nothing wrong with that—until she pulled my poor, vulnerable mother into her orbit.”
I thought of Flora’s diary, which had almost as much of Anne in it as Flora. “How did they meet?”
“In Medical, after a reembodiment. They started taking walks together, and Flora invited her to a matinee. Then it was shows every evening, and let’s move in together, and five years ago they actually started the Palace to show flickers of their own devising.” His hands on the wooden railing were clenched tight, nails biting into the ancient wood. “And suddenly she had no room in her schedule for her son—her own flesh and blood. If I hadn’t been a skimmer technician, I might have never seen her at all. But Flora thought she was blossoming,” he spat. “She thought my mother was finally starting tolive.”
“You said I had a point,” Flora put in.
“Because I knew if I fought with you, I would lose my mother completely,” he said, whirling to glare at her. “And then you found out you were having a child. A replacement for me, whom you would have let my mother help raise—until I convinced you, using your own selfish words, that she deserved her freedom.”
Flora flushed with the urge to argue, but subsided when Anne pressed her hand.
“Was that when you worked out how to erase Flora’s memories?” I asked.
“Erasing memories was never my intention,” Norris protested. “I wastryingto discover a way totransmitmemories. To carry them whole from the projectionist into the viewer. The substance, not merely the reflection.” He turned to look at Anne, and his eyes softened. “So that I would not be dependent upon my mother for the memories of my father.”
