--The Rules of a Good Life The fire was crackling, the smoke drawn up and out of fissures in the cave’s ceiling. Marnka had made a mélange of the jipini berries, tano, and denish that I’d found. It was scant, but delicious, the way any food is to the truly hungry. “I have been trying to remember all day,” Marnka said, licking a last bit of mélange off her fingers. “All day trying and mostly failing. Some memories are there. I can recall my kler and how it looked—the walls and structures. Huge black buildings, rising into the sky.” A shiver trembled across her shoulders. Her voice fell to a whisper. “There were needles and drugs. There was a dark room and a voice saying the same thing over and over. There was agony. I remember screaming.” A shiver ran through me as well. I remembered waking in Morvat Research Center, the overwhelming brightness of the colors, the unbearable noise. But I received something I wanted for my pain. I didn’t think it was the same for her.
