The Memory Thief

There is a lot that goes into a book, from the author, and everyone else in an author’s life. It would have been easier if I had written a Japanese steampunk novel while I had actually lived in Japan, rather than seven years later. However, since I did wait, I am fortunate to have friends to go to for help. Corinna, I am so glad I have you as a resource to ask questions about Japanese culture and language.

Thank you, Charlie, for doing dishes and all the other household things so I could spend more time writing. Thank you, Mom and Laura for being my beta readers. Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Alex Bear and Kathy Oltion, you all have been helpful in the editing, formatting and proofreading process. Holly Lorincz, thank you for your encouragement as an agent and suggestion that I start selling my work on my own. You were the professional push I needed.

I appreciate all the feedback from Wordos, my critique group, and that of my previous critique groups who inspired me to keep going. Because of these writers, this story is what it is today.

Prologue

In the year 1513, Ponce de Leon sailed across the sea for the Americas, it is said, in search of the Fountain of Youth. What he found instead was the greatest archeological find of the last three hundred years; he stumbled upon a semi-intact warehouse of starships, star charts and blueprints abandoned by the explorers rumored to have set out from Earth millennia ago. With the recovery of the ancient technology of spaceflight, we have been able to craft steam-powered vessels to carry us to distant worlds. Each year that passes brings us closer to perfecting the technology.

—Charles Babbage, inventor, visionary and innovator of the steam-powered space craft

The thrumming of drums and chatter of voices swelled as the tree palace came into view. Wooden treehouses above us were linked with ladders, ramps, and bridges almost hidden in the dense canopy of leaves above our heads. I had never seen so many half-naked men and women walking about the jungle of the Jomon colony as I did at the gathering of the tribes. The captain and crew of surveyors walked alongside my younger sister and me, gaping.

The villagers around us in their colorful feathered skirts and leaf hats stared at us out of the corners of their eyes. Those of the visiting tribes stepped back from us, never having seen people with skin so pale or clothes so impractically extravagant.

My senses were overloaded with the sights and sounds around me. The aroma of meat roasting on spits made my mouth water and the fire smoke burned my eyes. Children who had met me on previous occasions called out greetings, though they still couldn’t get my name and settled on Heri-shichi and Furi-shichi instead of Felicity.

My sister, Faith, diverted her eyes like a proper young lady. I made myself look straight ahead like nothing was amiss. Father gave up trying to cover my eyes and went back to fanning himself instead. He acted like his daughters hadn’t seen or spoken with the villagers before.

He walked in the shade of an umbrella tree just ahead of me, sweaty and miserable in his off-world attire. His top hat did little to shield him from the sun, and he dabbed at the constant trickle of perspiration on his forehead and cheeks with his handkerchief before it soaked his beard. He checked his pocket watch again, probably grateful to look somewhere other than the bare-breasted old woman passing us. Faith walked beside him in her pale blue dress, looking just as uncomfortable in puff sleeves and her high collar. The lace of my own collar felt like a noose.

I was so busy staring about at the various tribes dressed in green loincloths or bodies painted with red dots that I didn’t notice Taishi sneak up on us. He took my hand and yanked me off the path before Father could notice I was gone.

Taishi tugged me around purple ferns and through a frenzy of nose birds slurping nectar from tree lilies. His fingers were bronze and calloused compared to my fair skin. His long black hair whipped in my face several times, and I turned away laughing. I released his hand and panted against a tree to keep from falling over. Breathing the muggy air was like breathing syrup. My modern attire didn’t help.

Oh, you are caged. I forgot. He poked me in the ribs where the boning of my corset cinched my waist. His English was near perfect, his only grammatical imperfections having come from the United Worlds of America slang I had taught him.

Indeed. Have you anything else for me to wear? I asked.

Yes, by the stream. But only if my Felicity-chan doesn’t mind looking like an old man.

I rolled my eyes. My version of Jomon dress was far closer to what the elderly wore than the attire of a young lady my own age. What I was about to do would give my father enough of an apoplexy. I didn’t need to show my knees and belly as well.

Taishi took my hand and we walked through the jungle at a more reasonable pace.

The chatter of people grew distant and the gurgle of water louder. We descended the slope to the stream bank. On a rock rested the woven tunic I had worn last time when Father hadn’t been present in the village. I unbuttoned my blouse and threw it aside. I turned away and Taishi unlaced my corset. By now he was very good at helping me out of my corset and unmentionables.

He held my hands in his, staring for a long moment at the dark lines tattooed around my wrists. His black eyes twinkled. Do you want to swim before going back?

I glanced around the jungle. No one else was present.

He picked up the end of my long braid and tickled it against my cheek. I’ll guard for you. He ran back up the bank where he could watch the path.

I lifted my chemise to my knees and waded into the water. The chill was refreshing after the muggy heat of the day. I threw off my bloomers and chemise and sank into the water.

He glanced over his shoulder. Am I allowed to peek? The almond shapes of his eyes turned into crescents hugging his round-as-dumpling cheeks when he smiled.

I laughed. Only if it doesn’t distract you from being my lookout. I stood up and fetched my tribal clothes.

He didn’t turn from the path as I dressed. I tied the loose tunic into place. It came nearly to my ankles, but the airy style did show off my shoulders and collarbone. When I joined Taishi at the top of the bank, he circled an arm around my waist. His smile was mischievous. You know what else we could do? He nodded toward the logs covered with memory moss on the other side of the stream.

From what I had read in the starship’s computer, no other planet in the galaxy contained plants with the properties to transfer memories other than here on Aynu-Mosir. It had been nearly a week since we’d had the opportunity to slip off alone and share each other’s memories as Jomon were wont to do when courting.

You wagtail! You rake! Is that all you think about? I teased. Don’t you think my father will be vexed enough seeing me dressed in Chiramantepjin attire? We’ll be late. Are we to anger your mother too?

He hugged me closer. "Yes. If we are both nails that stick out, neither of us will be hammered down as severely. Ne?"

I tucked my United Worlds clothes into a hollow in a tree. Taishi held my hand as we returned to the village. I savored the happy mood, knowing it wouldn’t last long after we’d returned. The sultry air whispering through the jungle felt a million times lighter in these clothes. I kissed Taishi on the cheek and he pulled away.

No, no. We haven’t time, he said, making his voice stern despite the laughter dancing in his eyes. We don’t want to vex your father more. Tut tut.

The village bustled with three times as many people as usual. The native colonists walked on the wooden sky bridges in the tree canopies and hung out of hut windows in the boughs watching us. Tribes who had traveled for days—some for weeks—sat in the shade of umbrella trees, chatting amiably with the local villagers. The leaders and elders from the other tribes had come to meet my father. We were the first off-worlders most had ever seen.

I caught sight of Father checking his pocket watch. His face flushed redder when he saw me. Taishi gave my hand a reassuring squeeze before he slipped away to attend to his duties. Faith covered her mouth in horror at the sight of me and shook her head. Despite only being fifteen, she acted like she was a prudish old spinster.

My father fetched his bionical from his pocket. The bionic monocle fit over his eye and stayed in place due to the magnets implanted under his skin. The lenses flipped and the aperture widened to take me in. What the blazes do you think you’re doing? You will dress as a proper young lady and cover yourself!

I lifted my chin. You want to convince the Jomon to trade with us and give their consent for us to be here. Do you really think they’ll see us as friends when we look so alien to them?

Diplomacy be damned! I will not have my daughter in such immodest dress, and I will not have you disgrace yourself with those. He nodded to the tattoos I had allowed the women of the Chiramantepjin tribe to adorn my wrists with. We had already argued about the tattoos earlier in the week when Faith had tattled on me.

I’m old enough to decide what I want to wear, and if I’m going to be on the planet Aynu-Mosir, I will dress as the Jomon dress.

He raised his voice, drawing stares. You are seventeen. You’re too young to make such decisions for yourself.

I crossed my arms. Is that what you told Mother when she ran off with you at the age of eighteen?

He turned away in a huff and bid Faith to serve as translator for him. She beamed at the sudden attention. On the plus side, he didn’t chastise me for disappearing.

It was only a moment before the Chiramantepjin leader, Taishi’s mother, appeared, flanked by her attendants and the man who was their leader-in-training. Of all the times she had to approach, it had to be now while my father’s temper was at its blackest? Taishi held a tray of refreshments. He gestured to his mother with a jerk of his head and made a face at me as if to say he’d been chewed out too.

The leader of the tribe bowed to us. Father bowed back, though not as deeply as Faith and I.

Nipa’s gaze raked over the sweat stains under my father’s arms and the perspiration trickling down his neck. She spoke in the Jomon language. "Maybe you should take off some clothes and make yourself more comfortable, ne?" She wore the sky-blue headdress of her tribe’s animal, a shaggy beast’s head with horns and tusks. Aside from her necklace of ume pits, her ceremonial skirt, and the geometric tattoo patterns over her arms, she was naked like the rest of her people. With her heavy headdress, she too was sweating.

Faith bit her lip. It was obvious she didn’t feel comfortable translating. Father flipped through his book of phrases, attempting to sort out what she’d said.

She wants you to take off your clothes and be civilized like them, I said.

Faith pursed her lips. She didn’t correct my interpretation.

My father laughed, all smiles and diplomacy now. Tell Nipa I will remove my hat when she removes hers.

She smirked when I translated. Tell him that will only happen in my private chamber after sundown. He may come then, but my husband may not like him there.

Faith titled her head, absolutely baffled by the innuendo. I tried not to giggle. My father’s cheeks flushed when I told him what she’d said.

Taishi muttered under his breath in English, no doubt so his mother wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t even take off her symbols of office then. It’s bad enough being in trouble with your mother, but having to be berated by the emperor in front of the elders is another matter.

Faith covered her smile. My father laughed. He liked Taishi, even if he didn’t approve of me spending time unchaperoned with him. I could only hope he would like him enough that he wouldn’t mind our relationship when we told him.

Nipa’s eyes narrowed, no doubt understanding her son’s insolent tone more than his words. Son, she said sharply. She waved him forward to set carved melon bowls of cold tea in front of us.

Father tipped his bowl back and immediately drank. Faith and I exchanged annoyed glances. He’d already forgotten what we had told him about the etiquette we’d learned. She and I knew the Chiramantepjin customs better than our father and the rest of the ship’s surveying party, since we’d been the ones to discover the native colonists of the planet. Faith held her cup out to the leader and offered her the first sip. I held mine out to Nipa’s leader-in-training. He scowled at me and only pretended to drink. I didn’t blame him after the way I’d passed on influenza to Taishi three years before.

Father checked his pocket watch before tucking it back into his vest.

Nipa bowed her head. "If you are refreshed, shall we go to our council room and meet with the other leaders? We have many great matters to discuss, ne?"

Faith translated.

I stared into Shoko Nipa’s face, searching for a sign that she had considered my proposal and meant to speak to my father on the matter. Her visage was expressionless and stony like a good Jomon leader’s was supposed to be. She was so much easier to read when she didn’t wear her headdress and I could fully see her face. When she stepped into the role as Taishi’s mother, I liked the warmth of her smile, so much like her son’s. Donning the mask of her office, she was another person.

I spoke in Jomon. Excuse me, Shoko Mama, er, I mean, Nipa. Drat! I bowed my head. I’d messed up already and used her name instead of title. Taishi locked eyes with me and smiled sympathetically. It gave me courage. Pardon my intrusion, Nipa. During the meeting, will you—can I? Well. I cleared my throat. Will it only be the business of the red diamonds and trade that are discussed, or will you also speak to your elders about the matter of permitting a union between our two peoples in marriage?

What? Faith asked in English.

I shook my head at her. There was no point in her getting our father riled up over one more matter so soon after the fight about my attire. If he knew Taishi and I wanted to get married, and it wasn’t the idea of the elders, he would forbid us to go about unchaperoned.

Father sighed in exasperation. What has Felicity done now?

Nipa didn’t answer. She nodded to her son. "Attend to the guests’ needs. See that the doctor, captain and other gaiyojin are entertained."

Taishi’s smile disappeared and he trudged off. He was in trouble if she wasn’t permitting him to come to the meeting.

We followed Nipa up the wooden ramp and ascended the tiers to her council chamber in the tree boughs.

Faith pinched my arm and said through clenched teeth. Were you talking about Taishi and you? He wants to marry you? Her eyes watered and she actually looked hurt.

Don’t tell, I said. Not that she ever heeded me when I asked this of her.

She huffed. You could have told me.

Indeed, and have her tattle on me over one more matter? No, thank you.

Nipa bade us to sit to her right in the round room. Other tribes sat in a circle with us. No one smiled, nor did they look friendly. My stomach clenched. I told myself it was the mask headdresses covering the upper half of their faces that made them look more formidable. It couldn’t be that they wanted us to leave their world.

Nipa bowed to the room and in turn, everyone bowed to her. She introduced each man and woman in the circle while Faith and I took turns translating. There were seven tribes in attendance. The Isepojin of the south wore white headdresses covered in a dozen colossal ears that might have resembled a rabbit’s had they not been pink and scaly like a lizard’s. Their accent was so thick I could barely understand the head man and woman.

The Tanukijin leader wore a green and purple headdress, which covered her face. The tusks and horns added to her formidable frown. She wore little else, nor were the elderly wise men and women from her tribe attired in much more. The Cikapjin wore giant wings and were painted in bright colors to resemble what I suspected was some kind of leathery bird. From the name, I knew the Cepjin were fish people or must have lived near the sea, but their clothes were made of red and yellow feathers. They stared openly at me and I wondered if they might have had different customs about eye contact. There were two more tribes who had traveled weeks to attend the meeting of the seven tribes, the Tatsujin and Tokkonijin, the dragon and snake clans.

Everyone butchered my name when they repeated it. It had taken months for Taishi to grow accustomed enough to the sounds in our language to pronounce my name.

Nipa bowed her head and said, The tribes of Aynu-Mosir have gathered here to discuss a specific purpose today. We have gone thousands of years without contact with our home world of Earth. Do we wish to establish peaceful relations with these explorers or ask them to leave?

I translated. My father mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief.

The breeze from the window brought with it a funny smoke smell unlike the campfires of meat cooking below. A metallic twinge mixed with ozone stung my nostrils and reminded me of laser cannon fumes. An old man nearest the window wrinkled up his nose. The smell was out of place in the forest, as was the sound that followed. The low rumble, a noise in between an engine and an animal, grew from a purr to a roar. Outside came a crack and loud popping. Something large crashed through the trees. Someone below the tree palace screamed.

I thought I heard someone yell the word tatsu. Dragon. One of the Isepojin turned to the dragon clan and pointed, shouting. You vowed not to bring your leviathans into this province. You have betrayed us!

The Tatsujin leader snarled something back.

Nipa jumped to her feet, her headdress falling to the floor. I stared in horror, knowing something had to be wrong if she was more concerned about what was going on outside than her all-important symbol of leadership. She pointed to the door and yelled something. I couldn’t hear her over the screams. Blood pounded against my eardrums. The roof of the thatched hut above our heads exploded in fire.

The meeting of the tribes came to a premature end.

Chapter One

Upon the acquisition of the planet of Louisiana, in the year 1803, the government of the United Worlds of America directed its attention toward exploring and improving the new space territory. Soon we will be surveying other planets we have acquired.

—Meriwether Lewis, the Lewis and Klark Expedition, 1814 IS (Intergalactic Standard)

My stomach fluttered with a mixture of excitement and trepidation at the idea of returning to the planet I had once considered home. After months of travel I was here, and I might at last be able to retrieve my memories from the man who had stolen them seven years before.

When I set foot outside the spaceship, I expected to be greeted by the same jungle I had known as a little girl. Yet I hardly recognized the world before me. The mountains I recalled were flattened, and mounds of snow dotted a patchy forest. Icicles on trees glittered in the sunlight. The planet I had known had never been cool enough to freeze.

Captain Ford said from behind me, I thought this planet was supposed to be tropical. His United Worlds of America accent was like my late mother’s, only more of a coarse drawl.

I turned to the elderly man. Are you certain this is the same region of the planet? This looks like the northern province.

He leaned against the doorframe of the ship. His weathered face looked haggard as he stared at the expanse of dead-looking land in disgust. The gothic-style arches around the door of the interplanetary steamship, solar sails and gleaming metal looked out of place on the alien world. The ticking of gears and hiss of air within jarred against the silence around us.

The starship captain tipped his cap at me, his vexing smirk in place. These are the coordinates in your father’s log.

My father. I slid a hand into the pocket of my skirt, reassured his pocket watch still ticked. Being on the planet where he had died was less of a cathartic goodbye than I had hoped. My chest felt tight and constricted. I wished more than ever to be free of my corset so I could, for once, breathe. The chilling wind sent goosebumps up my spine and loosened blonde curls from my bun.

Meriwether placed a hand on my elbow. His eyes held the same concern they always did after I had slipped out of his sight. There you are, Felicity dear. Where is your cloak? You’ll catch a chill. His British accent was crisp and clear, more refined than my own with its hint of the Americas from my mother. He waved his hand at his father’s manservant. Charbonneau, would you be so kind to fetch Miss Earnshaw’s cloak?

I tore my gaze away from the stretch of barren land. Really, you needn’t fuss over me like this.

It’s too much for you, isn’t it? Do you need a minute, Felicity dear? His green eyes were filled with such love and concern, it was hard to not feel affection for him. The cool wind tousled the brown hair tied at the nape of his neck and stirred the ruffles of his cravat. His elegant features and noble bearing always attracted the attention of ladies at balls—and sometimes the men as well.

I gave him a grateful smile. If there was one person who knew what I had been through it would be my fiancé, as he had been the first one to find me on the planet seven years before. Had it not been for the miracles of space-age medicine, I might not have survived at all.

Are you two going to stand here dilly-dallying and making goo-goo eyes at each other, or are we going to get a move on? Captain Ford asked in his usual grumbly voice.

Meriwether sighed in exasperation. He might have been appointed leader of the party, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if Lord Klark had secretly hired the captain to ensure his son didn’t get in a fix.

The party, made up of surveyors, prospectors and crystal ore experts, stood behind the captain. It had been no picnic traveling for the last year with this rough group of men, though I suspected I was far more used to the coarse talk of the working class than was my fiancé. The only one whom I trusted not to stab us in the back, if it profited him, was old Charbonneau, Lord Klark’s personal servant.

Charbonneau handed me my bonnet and cape.

I shook my head at the laser muskets the men packed. Should we encounter any first-world colonists, we would be seen as less of a threat if we brought gifts instead of arms.

The only natives who still exist are in the minds of fanciful girls, said the captain’s mate.

I ignored the remark. At the age of twenty-four, I was far closer to being an old maid than a girl. Even so, it was no surprise that my words weren’t heeded.

The captain’s mate remained behind with the ship to draw in the solar sails and rewind our launch mechanism should we need to take off again. The rest of us set out, intending to find the river where my sister and I had once found the stones Lord Klark coveted. Though my guardian assured me he could find no trace of indigenous people and they had died off, I wondered if we might cross paths with the Chiramantepjin tribe or any others. I loathed myself for hoping Taishi and his family were still alive. I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to see him. Not if he was the one who had stolen my memories. Yet if I was to retrieve what I had lost, I would have to face him. That was the only reason I had returned.

We traveled for several miles, well past the valley and into the area where homes had been camouflaged in the thick canopies of trees. The jungle was now sparse and charred. Miles away, the green of trees appeared out of the mist nearer the mountains.

You’ve gotten us lost, haven’t you? one of the men grumbled.

I lifted my chin. No, not at all. It’s simply a matter of where the Chiramantepjin people now reside. You can’t expect them to live in the exact same place after seven years. Especially if their climate had changed.

Fourteen years, the captain corrected under his breath.

Indeed, I kept forgetting about the difference in time. Hyperjumps took seconds, but traveling to those launch points took over a year to get to from this world.

Meriwether lent me his hand as I stepped over a charred log. When he skidded on a slick patch of ice, I suspected he was more apt to need assistance over the rugged terrain than I. The men continued to grumble about my assertions.

If I might be so bold, Charbonneau said. Lord Klark reported that the savages left on this planet died long ago. All that remains is their ruins. What the first U.W.A., United Worlds of America, surveyors witnessed were modern colonists posing as natives in an attempt to assert a claim on the planet for their own. The British Empire of Planets has run these common criminals off the planet.

I frowned. The Jomon weren’t actually natives or aliens, but humans like us who had set out from ancient Japan in the first era of spaceflight millennia ago.

Meriwether looked to me with a question in his green eyes. His perfectly shaped lips parted as if to dispute this, but I linked my arm through his, drawing his attention. I gave the slightest shake of my head. Even when cross, as he was now, he was unequivocally handsome. So much so that he was often accused of genetic modifications and surgeries. I knew I should have felt pleased to know he was my betrothed, yet I could only feel unsettled at our impending marriage. It was a feat in itself that I had delayed marrying for this long.

Captain Ford scratched his straggly gray beard and nodded whence we came. I say we go back to the ship and land elsewhere.

Meriwether bit his lip, the gesture making him look even more boyish and inexperienced. Well, um, I suppose we could do that.

We need to find a river or a body of water, I said. That’s where you’ll find red crystal ore.

Indeed, splendid idea. Let’s do that from the ship, Meriwether said, no doubt attempting to please us both.

The air chilled as we headed back. One minute it was cool and balmy, nothing a cloak and bonnet couldn’t handle. If anything, the exercise along the steep valley trail made me insufferably hot. Storm clouds gathered in the sky and roiled above us, the air turning icy and wind picking up. Snow fell thick and dense so that within minutes we could scarcely see a few feet in front of us.

Charbonneau lagged behind and I placed an arm around him to keep the feeble old man from falling over in the wind.

We have to hail the ship to retrieve us! Meriwether shouted over the howl of wind.

The falling snow scattered the signal to our ship and we couldn’t get word to the captain’s mate onboard. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong did.

In a matter of