The brass pipes hummed with ethereal melodies as Lyra descended into the lower districts of Europa Station, where the ice miners traded more than just frozen water. Here, beneath the pressurized domes that kept Jupiter’s moon habitable, memory merchants hawked their wares like street vendors selling trinkets.
“Fresh heartbreak from a Martian poet!” called one trader. “Still warm with authenticity!”
Lyra pulled her thermal cloak tighter and navigated through the crowd of fortune seekers, exiles, and those simply trying to survive another rotation. She wasn’t here for the usual fare—stolen first kisses, childhood summers, or manufactured dreams of Earth’s blue skies. She needed something specific, something dangerous.
The Memory Merchant’s stall sat tucked between a black market food vendor and a fortune teller who claimed to read futures in ice crystals. Unlike the flashy competitors, his display case contained only a dozen crystalline vials, each one glowing with an inner light that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat.
“Ah,” the merchant said without looking up from his ledger. His fingers bore the telltale silver scarring of someone who’d handled raw memories for decades. “The Captain’s daughter seeks what cannot be purchased with standard credits.”
Lyra’s hand instinctively moved to the energy weapon at her hip. “How do you—”
“Know who you are?” The merchant finally raised his head, revealing eyes like fractured mirrors. “Child, I trade in the currency of human experience. Your father’s memories of the Ganymede Incident have been… circulating. Quite popular among those who fancy themselves revolutionaries.”
Heat rose in Lyra’s cheeks despite the station’s perpetual chill. Six months ago, her father had sold his military memories to pay for her mother’s medical treatments—a noble sacrifice that had also erased his recollection of classified operations, including the truth about Ganymede.
“I need to buy them back,” she said.
The merchant chuckled, a sound like grinding metal. “Those particular memories were purchased by someone who values them far more than their original owner ever did. But perhaps…” He gestured to a vial containing swirling silver mist. “I have something that might interest you instead.”
“I don’t want a substitute. I want my father’s memories.”
“This isn’t a substitute, my dear. It’s perspective.” The merchant lifted the vial, and the silver mist within seemed to reach toward Lyra like grasping fingers. “These memories belong to the Ganymedian refugees your father’s unit was meant to evacuate. The ones who didn’t make it out.”
Lyra stepped back as if struck. The official reports claimed total evacuation success. Her father had worn his medals from that operation until the day he sold away the experiences that earned them.
“The truth,” the merchant continued, “has a way of surfacing, regardless of how deeply we bury it. Your father sold his guilt, yes, but he couldn’t sell theirs.” He set the vial back down gently. “The question is: are you prepared to carry what he couldn’t?”
Outside the stall, jovian wind howled against the dome’s reinforced glass. Lyra thought of her father, now happily tending his hydroponic garden with no knowledge of the shadows that had haunted him for years. She thought of her mother, alive because those shadows had been monetized and sold.
“How much?” she whispered.
The merchant smiled sadly. “For you? Just the promise that you’ll use what you learn wisely. Some truths are too important to remain buried in the ice.”
Lyra’s fingers closed around the cool crystal, and suddenly she understood why memory merchants were both revered and feared throughout the outer colonies. They didn’t just trade in recollections—they dealt in the fundamental currency of what made people human.
As the foreign memories began to integrate with her own consciousness, Lyra realized she was no longer just a captain’s daughter seeking answers. She was becoming something far more dangerous: a keeper of inconvenient truths in a universe built on convenient lies.
The Memory Merchant watched her leave, then carefully updated his ledger. Some transactions, he noted, paid dividends that extended far beyond the initial sale.
Leave a Reply