Nicola Griffith by Slow River

it, Bird?”
    “I have readout anomalies.”
    “Which ones?”
    “The whole bank. Going wild. Nothing makes any sense.” Magyar did not reply immediately. She probably did not know what to do. “I need your authorization to cut the flow to the secondary sector.”
    “But we don’t know that there’s anything wrong with our stream. . .” She sounded scared.
    “We don’t know that there isn’t, either, and they don’t have the sensors we do.”
    “It’s probably computer failure. Or maybe the monitors have gone down because of backflow. Flooding.”
    “The flood warning didn’t go off. We have to—” I broke off. Judging from the entire bank of instruments going crazy, it probably
was
simple computer failure. There was another way. “Look, I think there’s a way I can cut the stream temporarily and divert it to the holding tanks. Fifteen minutes won’t do anyone any harm. Secondary sector might not even notice. And I can take some readings manually, if you have a handheld photoionization detector around.”
    There was a moment of silence. “There’s one in the locker that’s about knee height. In front of you. Get me your results ASAP.”
    The PD turned out to be an old-fashioned portable of a kind I had not seen since I was a child. It was calibrated in parts per trillion. I lugged the case out of the influent bunker and along to my trough. It took me a while to remember how to assemble it. Thigh-deep in water, I hoped I would not stumble into one of the irregular gouges the rake had torn in the gravel. With the weight of the PD I would overbalance and I had no barrier protection for my face. The machine bleeped softly in my hand. Everything looked good so far.
    It was full dark outside now, and the water, under its surface of reflected bright white, looked black, like ink. If the lights here went out, I wondered, would I be able to see the stars reflected in the troughs? Only if someone went onto the roof and cleaned off years’ worth of grime.
    Ten minutes later, when I waded out, Magyar was waiting, thumbs hooked in her belt.
    “The readings are fine. Dead on normal.”
    “Good.” I waited for her to say
I told you so
. The holding tanks would now have to be pumped out and cleaned. A lot of extra work for a shorthanded shift. She just nodded at the PD. “That’s not a handheld.”
    “It’s all there was.”
    “Looks heavy.”
    “It’s not so bad when you’re in the water. And, anyway, it feels a lot lighter than they used to when I was thirteen.”
    She gave me a strange look. “I’ll have to take your word for that.”
    I pretended not to notice her surprise, but I was disgusted with myself. First self-pity, now nostalgia. It led to slips I could not afford.

SIX
    Lore is nearly seven and a half. The family is staying with friends in Venezuela for month or so over Christmas. Greta is there, too.
    The only image Lore really has of her half sister, Greta, is grayness: gray hair, gray eyes, and a gray kind of attitude to life. She is almost always away somewhere looking after the family interests. She is much older, of course—twenty-five now—and Lore tends to treat her more like an aunt than a sister, partly because Greta, even when she’s around, seems so distant, withdrawn. Not unkind, just preoccupied with whatever it is that always makes her look stooped and check around corners before turning them. Lore has never seen her laugh, though sometimes she does smile. At those times Lore thinks she looks beautiful: her face stretches sideways a little, shortening it, taking away the grooves and hollows and shadows, changing it from gray to gold.
    Lore’s most vivid memory of Greta has to do with the Dream Monster.
    Lore is asleep on her stomach with the covers thrown off the bed—how she always sleeps in a hot climate—when suddenly she is woken up by the monster. It has her pinned down and is breathing hot fire on her neck and groaning like a beast. She shrieks, and pushes, and