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Ammonite

Nicola Griffith

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Contents

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A first novel — winner in 1993 of both the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award & the Lamda Award for lesbian science fiction & fantasy

“ Ammonite is a marvelous blend of high adventure and mind-boggling social speculation—it marks the arrival of Nicola Griffith as a new sf star for the 90s.”

—KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Marghe awoke to dawn and hard-edged thoughts. The compass damage might be as temporary as her proximity to the standing stones; there was only one way to find out. She dragged her pack through the tent flap, stood and stretched, and looked around.

Fear slapped the breath back into her lungs.

She was surrounded by riders on motionless horses. Shrouded in mist, they looked like apparitions or otherworld demons. Marghe lifted her arms to show she was weaponless and walked stiffly toward the nearest figure. The rider snapped down her spear.

“Stranger, why do you stand in the ringstones of the Echraidhe? The penalty for soiling the stones of our ancestors is death.”

The spear moved as the rider balanced it for a belly thrust. Fascinated, Marghe watched the point pull back for the disembowelling stroke…

A Del Rey Book BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright © 1992 by Nicola Griffith

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-97048

ISBN 0-345-37891-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: February 1993

For Kelley, who fills my life with grace.

Acknowledgments

This is a first novel. It took a while to get to this point. I want to thank the following people for their help along the way: Lyall Watson, from whose Gifts of Unknown ThingsI borrowed ideas; the students and teachers of Clarion ’88; David Pringle; my sisters, Julie and Carolyn and Anne; all those who have helped in their various ways with my struggles to stay in this country, especially Peter Pautz, Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight, Lisa Goldstein, Stan Robinson, Tim Powers, and Jim Blaylock; Fran Collin; Ellen Key Harris; and all the people who put up with my tirades,, they know who they are.

Special love and thanks go to:

Carol Taylor

for all those years of faith, love and encouragement

and

my parents, Margot and Eric Griffith,

for everything.

Chapter One

^ »

MARGHE’S SUIT WAS still open at neck and wrist, and the helmet rested in the crook of her left arm. An ID flash was sealed to her shoulder: “Marguerite Angelica Taishan, SEC.” The suit was wrinkled and smelled of just-unrolled plastic, and she felt heavy and awkward, even in the two-thirds gravity of orbital station Estrade.

She stood by the airlock at the inside end of A Section, The door was already open. Waiting. She rested the fingertips of her right hand on the smooth ceramic of the raised hatch frame; it was cool, shocking after two days of the close human heat of A Section.

The sill of the airlock reached her knees; easy enough to step over. No great barrier. The lock chamber itself was two strides across. The far door was still closed, sealed to another sill, like this one. Four steps from here to B Section. Four steps. She had recontracted with SEC, endured six months of retraining on Earth, traveled eighteen months aboard the Terragin, and spent the last two days on the Estradebumping elbows with the three-member crew, all to take those four steps. “Well, Nyo and Sigrid say good luck, but they’ll be out there for hours yet, fixing the satellite.” Sara Hiam unclipped her headset. The slight, small woman with the atrophied muscles and club-cut dark blond hair was matter-of-fact, using her doctor persona. In the two days since she had come aboard Estrade, Marghe had learned that Hiam had several distinct facets to her personality, facets she rotated to face any given situation. It was a survival tactic, one way Hiam—and Sigrid and Nyo—had managed to spend five years up here without going mad. Marghe knew there was a great deal of the doctor she had not seen; she wondered what the real Sara Hiam was like.

“Life support is up and running in Section D,” Hiam said. “Are you ready?”