Change or die. These are the only options available on the planet Jeep. Centuries earlier, a deadly virus shattered the original colony, killing the men and forever altering the few surviving women. Now, generations after the colony has lost touch with the rest of humanity, a company arrives to exploit Jeep–and its forces find themselves fighting for their lives. Terrified of spreading the virus, the company abandons its employees, leaving them afraid and isolated from the natives. In the face of this crisis, anthropologist Marghe Taishan arrives to test a new vaccine. As she risks death to uncover the women's biological secret, she finds that she, too, is changing–and realizes that not only has she found a home on Jeep, but that she alone carries the seeds of its destruction. . . . Ammonite is an unforgettable novel that questions the very meanings of gender and humanity. As readers share in Marghe's journey through an alien world, they too embark on a parallel journey of fascinating self-exploration.
Ammonite
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—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
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
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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
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
“Life support is up and running in Section D,” Hiam said. “Are you ready?”
