The Wanted Memory

Declarative memory, stored in the hippocampus, is memory we can talk about. We remember learning it, and we can explain why it's important. Nondeclarative memory is more complicated: it is sense memory, deep memory, the memory of what our name is and what our mother smelled like. You need declarative memory to pass exams and do your job. But you need nondeclarative memory to be human.

* * *

Lieutenant Oliviero wasn't sure, as he rolled back toward the wall, whether the prostitute would be more offended that he'd fucked her badly, or that he hadn't fucked her at all; the truth was, he was so wasted he just couldn't remember which it'd been. And to make matters worse, the naked girl was Warrant Officer Jackson, who worked in his own department. "Sorry, Jackson. Whatever happened was probably unpleasant."

She lounged on one elbow, her lidded blue eyes whore-wise above fresh young freckles and a clean, long-limbed body. She shrugged with one elbow. "It's fine, sir. No hard feelings."

Oliviero glanced sharply back at her; had she emphasized hard? Was she teasing him? Would she joke about his cock now, giggling with the others in the department? Her eyes gave away nothing, and that fucking pimp Terranova trained his girls carefully, but still... "I'll tip you, of course."

"Of course." Gods, she really was a confection: Oliviero found himself wishing, fervently, that he'd been able to get it done with her last night, but the alcohol had taken over as it always did. She gazed frankly down his body, dwelling on his limp cock, and shrugged again. "Whatever you want, sir. I pride myself on my professional and discreet service."

She was a really good navigator, too, which was fortunate since Oliviero was normally too drunk to handle that, too. A whiz with the fuel calculations, as well; come to think of it, she was pretty good at almost everything. "Ever think of officer candidate school, Jackson?"

She laughed in his face. "Fuck no, sir. I'm not spending any more time in Fleet than I absolutely have to." Well. At least she was honest. "Look, I'm going to get going. I've got duty at 0800. Are, um, are you going to be okay, sir?"

He knew what she meant: are you going to get wasted again? It was not usually a question worth asking, since the answer was almost always yes, but he sighed as he watched her nude form rise gracefully from the bunk and stretch high against the ceiling. He sighed. "I'll be fine, Jackson."

Her face told him she did not believe that, and he had to admit she was probably right: their ship held 213 souls, meaning everyone knew everyone else far better than was healthy. He could identify half of them by smell; it was how he'd known Jackson was sharing his bunk this morning in the dark of space. Now she stood there quietly, proud and tall and waiting while her clothes did themselves up, and Oliviero came slowly to his senses and scrambled for his wallet. "Mr Terranova is happy to run your tab," she said quietly as her slim, high breasts packed themselves away, "but cash is always appreciated as a tip..."

She left him, her face sour and her own wallet heavier by no more than twenty-three shekels and eleven pence, an insultingly low tip that correlated with the sum total of what Oliviero had to his name. He sat on the edge of his bunk and watched her go while he fought the daily battle: breakfast in the wardroom with the other officers, or breakfast in here with the bottle?

As usual, it was no contest.

* * *

"Wake up, Oliviero."

It was, as always, Ellie Novak, smacking his face as he lay sprawled in a tangle of bedsheets and vomit. "Go away."

"I already did," she replied bitterly. "Twice. But for some reason the captain wants you on the bridge, so wake your ass up and follow me."

"Fuck you."

"Nope." Oliviero was First Officer, meaning Novak worked for him, since he managed the whole ship. But he knew as well as she did that he couldn't even manage himself, so most of that fell to her. "Not today. Time to get up. We're falling out of lightspace in thirty minutes."

Awareness oozed back into his mind. "Already?"

Novak looked neutrally at his pale body. "You've been passed out since Jackson left you," she explained. "That was twelve hours ago." She squatted next to him, looking up like the parent of a junky well past the point of rehab; there was concern there, of a sort, because they'd served together a long time. But there was also the cynicism of despair, and for the same reason. "I need you today, Kai. You need to inspect the cargo and sign off on it. I do 90% of your job; today is your 10%. You need to get it together."

He remembered, the straggled twists of thought reassembling themselves. "The Clone Farm."

"Yup. The Clone Farm." She stood and nudged the button by the bunk, summoning his uniform. "Nasty duty, but it is what it is. I've got the manifest all ready to do; me and Chief Koster are shuttling down at 1620 local, doing the pickup, and then you need to inspect once we get back." She looked to one side. "The captain doesn't want to be bothered with it."

"Of course not." Oliviero was about to say more, but Novak's expression told him not to bother. In case he missed it, she put it into words.

"As much as you're sick of him, I'm sick of you." She turned to go. "Bridge. Now." She watched him dress, and at last she smiled her grim, distant smile. "If you want, Koster and I can grab your next liver while we're down there."

"Not necessary, Ellie. Thanks." He was on liver #3 already, and all the fault of that woman. He yawned, feeling like he'd just climbed out of his casket. "I'll be there."

"Promises, promises," she clucked, the hatch closing behind her.

* * *

He was staring, glaze-eyed, out the forward viewport when Schillinger nudged him. "They're all secure, sir. Ready for you in Bay Three."

"Well then. I guess that puts you in charge of the bridge, Amber." He smiled at her, feeling the whisky-sweat chilly in his armpits. "Such a big moment for you." Schillinger had slept her way up, but that didn't mean she was incompetent. She arched an eyebrow at the irony: she was far, far less useless as a watch officer than he himself was. "Well then. Steady as we go, full speed ahead, whatever. I'll send Lieutenant Novak up here to take us out of orbit." He caught the lift down to the Bays.

The bins stood open for inspection at the forward end of Bay Three, looking like a series of surgical teaching aids or perhaps off-cuts from a butcher shop. Joop Koster stood by with the inspection form, most of it already filled in. "Sir." The Chief was always quiet, even furtive. "Four full clones and assorted parts, as manifested."

"Mmm." Trips to the Clone Farm were never fun. Everyone who joined Federal Service was entitled to a free clone, kept out here at the Farm in case of catastrophic injury or technical death, tended constantly by what had to be the least motivated troops in the universe. "Tags all present? Vascular pumps installed properly?"

"Sir. Surgeon's already done his inspection."

"We're just waiting on you, sir, and then we're gone." Novak came out of the latrine, wiping her hands on her slim hips. "Off to the Cygnus hospital ship." The invasion there was said to have been massive, the slaughter impressive. Oliviero strolled along the line of bins, his count cursory, trusting that Novak and Koster and Dr January and the Clone Farmers down below couldn't possibly have missed anything, and he initialed each bin without much thought.

"Now then." The four full clones stood nude and shivering at the end of the line, reminders that four servicepeople had either died or nearly so: these were here because their originals were so ravaged by battle that it was more cost-effective to just replace their whole body. There'd be heads out there off Cygnus, or at least brains, or at the very least a frontal lobe and hippocampus combo, all waiting to be dropped into these four shivering forms that now stared blankly around them.

These had names on the manifest, and Oliviero stopped boredly before each one. He didn't notice the bodies any more than anyone else in Fleet did; nudity was not remarkable on the Fleet's ships. Though that second one, called Marie, was an absolute sexy witch. She answered, he marked her off, and then it was on to the third one. "Ling-kwan Johnson?"

"Sir." The third clone, according to the form, belonged to an encryption tech, now nothing but a head with a bloodbag attached.

"Welcome aboard. And last, but not least..." He stopped short, blinking at the name on the board, convinced there had to be some mistake; he was completely unwilling to raise his eyes to look at the last clone.

Silence, the whole Bay heavy, the various cloned body parts squirming as Novak's people lidded the bins. The dense quiet spread awkwardly. "Uh, sir?" Novak sounded curious. "What's up?"

The manifest said the last in the line was a clone of a woman whose name Oliviero had seen before, a name too uncommon to be a duplicate. And when the list went blurry Oliviero wasn't sure whether it was trembling hands or teary eyes. He dragged those eyes up to view the naked girl, only to find that it was the trembling hands. "Marcellina Brightstar?"

"Yes, sir." She studied at him with that same look of head-cocked interest that she'd always used, her slim body the same down to the coffee-colored birthmark on her right hip. They'd even groomed her the same, an upswept shock of dark-copper hair matching the tuft they'd left between her legs. Oliviero could only assume they'd set her up that way based on the most recent photos and measurements available; it's what the clonemasters tried to do when possible, though sometimes the body was too mangled to tell. His mouth went dry.

Lina. "Did they tell you what happened to your original?" He felt breathless strain in his voice, the manifest saying only "lobe and hippo." So the real Marcellina, the actual Marcellina, must be blown away now in cold storage on some hospital ship off Cygnus, reduced to a couple of handfuls of white matter and, maybe, some attached gristle.

"No sir." She paused, quite unconcerned by his regard. "They trained me as an orbital astrophysicist, though, so I assume my original must have been some sort of Fleet officer."

She was. "Welcome aboard," Oliviero stammered, forcing himself to look away from her smooth, pale perfection, the well-remembered curves, and he handed the board deliberately back to the bemused Koster. Oliviero was craving a drink suddenly, the need like a living thing in him, much worse than usual. He nodded to Novak. "Get them situated. Clothes and quarters for the fulls, give the partials to Dr January." He felt like throwing up. "You know what to do."

"Sir!" Novak was glaring at him as he strode away. "Need your signature, sir." She had that mulish, stony voice that announced she was once again done with his bullshit, and as Oliviero whirled to sign Chief Koster's stupid sheet, he was extremely careful not to look at Lina.

* * *

Cygnus XIX was a long way away, and Kai Oliviero assumed he'd spend the entire transit in a state of advanced inebriation in his cabin. They'd be passing through numerous enemy-controlled zones and along the dangerous gravity well near Vulpecula, but Oliviero could have given two shits about any of that; Novak could handle it, anyway, or the captain. His only real concern at the beginning of the passage was running out of whiskey.

Novak knocked on his door when they were two days out from the Clone Farm. She was the only one he'd open up for when he was like this, and they both knew it. The two were the only two full lieutenants aboard, and they lived right across the corridor from each other. "Had a couple days to recover," she observed, pushing past him. She held a plastic bag. "What happened in the Three Bay?"

"What are you talking about, Ellie?" She was sprawled at his desk, her nose firmly wrinkled; it had to smell like shit in here, Oliviero thought dully. "I calmly and professionally performed my duty, just as always." He rose imperiously then, glaring down at her, and passed quickly into the latrine to puke. He'd consumed nothing but liquor for hours. When he staggered back, Novak had produced a large square of matzo from her bag.

"Eat," she commanded, "and then talk. I want to know what's up with that clone."

"Clone?" Oliviero collapsed onto his mattress, a tower struck by an earthquake, staring sourly out the viewport.

"Clone," she replied firmly. "You went completely pale when you saw that last clone, the Marcellina one. And guess what?" She got tired of waiting and started munching on the matzo herself, dry. "She noticed."

He felt his blood chill. "No."

Novak looked at him clinically. "Your powers of observation are a wonder to behold," she shrugged, "but still I find it hard to believe you missed it. She's pretty smart." The matzo crackled, its crumbs blending into the soiled deck. "I've been chatting with her."

"You're not supposed to get to know the clones," Oliviero hissed. "They're not friends. They're not even people, really."

"Not once we get to Cygnus," Novak agreed. "But so far, she's still got the same frontal lobe she's always had. She's pretty smart," she repeated. "I mean, for a clone."

Oliviero stared out the viewport, the ship in lightspace with the stars there all rigid. He scratched at his balls and decided enough was enough. "She's pretty smart for an original, too."

Novak nodded. She'd guessed right. "Must be strange, meeting a clone when you know the original." She was watching him closely. "Might even be enough to send me on a two-day bender." She reached languidly over, studied the whiskey label, and took a brief swig. "Yech. Not three, though. You're First Officer; you can't afford better shit?"

Oliviero stared at her. "Do you have any idea how much I drink?" The admission rolled out like a marble through a tube. She knew, anyway. "I barely even taste it anymore."

Novak sighed, then got to her feet and strode to the latrine. Oliviero heard splashing, then the flush, then the empty bottle hitting the wastebasket, and he shut his ragged eyes. There were seven comforting bottles still under his bunk. Novak came trudging back. "Well, I'm tired, Kai. Your turn to pull your own watch."

Oliviero blinked wearily. "Ellie, do you really trust me to steer the ship along the largest gravity well for thirty light-years?" He flopped back onto his bunk, his belly protesting again. "I can't feel my teeth."

"Jesus Buddha." She sounded disgusted. "Well, then I guess the junior officers will get to be in charge for awhile, because I'm crashing. I'm fucking beat." She shook her head. "You need to get it together, Kai. You're a special kind of fucked-up right now."

"I know," he squeaked.

She blinked at him. "I mean, man up. Get a whore or something. And if not? At least put some clothes on, you fucking barbarian. I'm tired of looking at your penis."

"Then stay out of here, Second Officer Novak. Nobody begged you to come in," he snapped, puckish. Then his eyes found her bag. "Is there any more matzo in there?"

"Get it yourself." She stretched high in unconscious imitation of the departed Jackson, and not for the first time Oliviero wondered what Novak was like in bed. She caught him shaking his head at the thought. "What?"

"Nothing." He sighed. "Thanks for trying. Go ahead and crash; I'll get up and do my watch." He sniffed, his belly still queasy. "Got any stim?"

"Yeah." Novak brightened at the thought of a sale; it was the Second's responsibility to deal drugs on board. "I've got Bump and Rush, no Crystal. How much you got?"

Oliviero thought about the insultingly inadequate tip he'd been able to scrounge for Jackson. "Nothing, Ellie. Give me some anyway." He raised his eyes pitifully. "For the good of the ship."

She smiled without warmth. "Tell you what. I'll tell my girl Ana to hook you up with an ounce of Rush." She gazed at him pointedly. "Once you get to the bridge."

He moaned, but he wasn't sure why Novak hadn't thought of that kind of thing years ago. "Okay. She's the dark-haired one, right?"

"She's the bitch sitting at my station right now, pulling maintenance watch. You know, at my station," she repeated loudly. She yawned, her mouth a cave. "While I rack out. Get up there, sir." She sauntered toward the hatch. "We can talk about that clone some other time, when you're conscious."

Oliviero waved feebly. He doubted he'd ever be quite that conscious.

* * *

He'd learned once at the Academy, years ago, why it was important to get the entire brain out of an irreversibly dying casualty, and it was one of those classes he'd never ever forgotten. This war had been producing lots of full-clone casualties lately, and it seemed their own USS Thorbjorn was making more than her fair share of trips to the Farm to shuttle them. People said the hippo and the frontal were all you really needed, but Oliviero knew that wasn't true.

The class had been about cranial salvage. That was the euphemism: in fact, as the instructor told them, it amounted to brutal, stomach-clenched butchery, usually at the height of battle, often under fire, and always under stress. "The key to a successful head harvest," the odious little man had shrugged, "is plumbing, basically. As long as you get the haemodrive clamped on to the right vessels and keep the batteries charged, it really doesn't matter how tidy you are." There'd been a slideshow to go with it, the kind that tended to drive the more delicate cadets quickly from the room with greenish faces.

"The instruction sheet will pop out automatically when you open the haemo, and that tells you what tubes to stick on to which vessels." He'd been demonstrating on a training head, made of plastic. Even that had been eerie. It had gotten worse later, when he'd done the live demo on an unused clone, the thing's eyes vacant with the Drag they'd injected before the lesson; the medic had grinned as he told them most clones didn't really like getting their heads removed, even for educational purposes.

And then, the part that Oliviero was suddenly able to recall: "The younger medics, they'll tell you all you need is part of the brain, the hippocampus, the frontal lobe, whatever. Well, that's bullshit. That gets you the personality, some of the speech, the sense of humor, the specific things you've learned.

"But you don't get the nonspecific things. You don't get sense memory, especially smell. You can't recall random memories that you can't even remember making. We find that folks who survive a lobe-and-hippo, they spend a long time, sometimes the rest of their lives, with that tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, where they know they want to say something, or know something, or remember something, but they can't remember how to describe it. That doesn't happen if you salvage the entire brain. So you really do need the whole thing; that's what your first-aid drills ought to be about."

There were times that Oliviero wondered whether someone had put his own brain into a clone, times that he had that same problem with his own memory. But in his case, he knew better. He knew it was the drinking.

But the thought of that little medical instructor from the Academy wasn't like that, not now. That memory was brutally clear, like his vision just before a migraine hit. He could recall it now: the classroom, the antiseptic smell banished so suddenly by that rusty-iron odor of spilled blood when the demo had taken the clone's head off. Splatters on the floor, until the instructor had made the student volunteer hook up the haemo, and then the clone's eyes had lurched back open, jaw and tongue working soundlessly; those were the only muscles the clone had control over now. The weirdest moment, as Oliviero remembered clearly, had been when the head lolled its eyes down and to the right, staring in fascination at its own headless body still quivering on the table.