“Attention.” It was the bored airline hostess voice again, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. It made all three of them jump. “Extensive monitoring shows a fracture in the OneMind of your triumvirate,” the voice continued. “Your projections are substandard in the extreme. Though we deeply regret it, you will now be put through a series of tutorials in an attempt to heal these rifts.”
“Is that right?” Truth growled, clearly not expecting an answer. “And I suppose we’re going to be booted out if we don’t agree to go through your damn tutorials?”
“Failure to comply will result in your ultimate termination from the Mindscape,” the voice said, almost as though it was answering Truth’s sarcastic question.
“Perfect!” exclaimed Becca. “Then we’ll finally get out of here.”
“As well as the dissolution of your physical bodies within the slime tanks,” the voice continued blithely in that same, slightly bored tone.
“Mother of God!” Becca breathed. “Does that mean what I think it means?” Oh, we’re in trouble here, a little voice in her brain whispered. So much trouble…
“I’m afraid so.” Far’s face was pale.
Truth muttered a curse under his breath. “I knew we should not have come!”
“Tutorial one begins now. You are being monitored. Good luck,” the voice said and then fell silent.
“What are we going to do?” Becca whispered, her lips numb with fear.
She’d been afraid earlier when she learned they were going underground and even more frightened when she’d thought she had lost Far and Truth in the gray fog. But now she knew what true terror was.
They were about to go through some alien test they didn’t understand—one that would probably be painful in some way—and if they didn’t pass they would die.
And so far we’ve failed every single thing we’ve tried to do here—how is this going to be any different?
“What are we going to do?” she repeated.
“Well, to start with, I suppose we’re going to go through that door.” Truth nodded at a strange curtain made up of long strands of hollow wooden beads which was suddenly hanging in midair, right beside the bed.
“What is that?” Far asked. “And where does it lead?”
“As for where it leads, I don’t know,” the dark twin growled. “But it looks like the door to my bedroom when I was a child.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The room they stepped into was dreadfully familiar to Truth. It was high at the apex of the tree-top lodge where his father and step or second mother had lived when he was a child of eight or nine cycles. Because of their monthly transformations, the Rai’ku built their dwellings in the branches of the vast, solid boadab trees that grew at the base of the high, snow covered peaks of Pax’s main mountain range. The trees grew together, their branches intertwining, until they were almost one entity. Several such dwellings could be built side by side in a kind of regular neighborhood but for some reason, no one had chosen to build on either side of their lodge.
Truth knew the reason for that—his father came home drunk too often. Drunk and raving about the past. The Rai’ku were adamant about minding their own business—privacy was not just respected but enforced. And no one wanted a neighbor who shouted his personal business, who could be heard swearing at his mate and children or perhaps beating them…
Truth shut down the painful thought at once. Gods, why did they have to come here? What kind of sadist was running this Mindscape place anyway?
A large wooly glow worm, one of the few non-carnivorous animals native to Pax, was hanging from the wooden beams, shedding a pale, diffuse blue light over the front part of the room. Truth was at the back of the room, where the roof sloped steeply upward. He took a step and felt the floor sway ever so slightly under his adult weight. Yet, somehow, he wasn’t all there. He felt…fractured in some way. Cut in two, which didn’t make any sense. And then he saw the reason why.
Lying in the small hammock strung to the ceiling with twisted rope and just visible by the wooly worm’s light, was the younger version of himself. Truth remembered the hammock bed well. It was old and lined with the vast, leathery boadab leaves that felt ice cold to the touch until they finally warmed to your skin. His younger self was huddled in the center, covered by a ragged blanket and shivering.
The temperatures were cold on Pax—colder than was natural to a Twin Kindred, he supposed. But since none of his brothers or the other children in his learning pod seemed to mind the chilly weather, he had learned to say nothing of it, even if he felt he was freezing to death. The blanket was a shameful secret—something he had scavenged out of the refuse heap to use on particularly chilly nights. He kept it hidden beneath the wide boadab leaves during the day and only took it out at night, when he could no longer stand the bite of the wind, which whipped through the cracks in the wooden lodge.
Gods, was I ever so small? Truth looked at his younger self in wonder. The outline of the child’s body beneath the thin, ragged bit of cloth looked scrawny and malnourished. The pale eyes that peered out from under his wild thatch of black hair looked huge in the small, thin face.
“Truth, where are we? And why is it so cold here?” Becca’s voice drew him out of his reverie and he realized that she and Far were standing beside him, looking around the bare wooden room curiously.
“This is nowhere,” he said roughly. “Just a…a place I remember from childhood.” He scowled. “As to the temperature—it’s always like this on Pax.”
“This isn’t just a place you remember from childhood—it is your childhood, isn’t it?” Far asked. “Is that you?” He raised an eyebrow and nodded at the shivering child.
Truth felt his scowl deepen. “I suppose.”
“You were so little.” Becca sounded surprised.
“I didn’t begin to get my growth until later,” Truth snapped.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she protested softly. “It’s just—you and Far are both such big guys. It’s hard to imagine you as ever being anything else.”
“Yes, well…” Truth gestured tersely. “As you see, I once was.”
“Can you, uh, I mean, can he see us?” Becca asked. The three of them were standing in the back of the room, out of sight of the small figure and the wind was whistling loudly enough to hide their murmuring voices. How they had entered through the front door of the room and yet wound up in the back, Truth had no idea. Must be another trick of the Mindscape.
“I…do not know if I—if he—can see us or not.” He felt strangely reluctant to risk speaking to his younger self. He was older now—a grown male who was able to fend for and protect himself. It was painful to see the scrawny, scared, vulnerable child he had once been. Painful in the extreme.
“I think—” Far began but just then the sound of heavy, deliberate footfalls could be heard on the wooden steps leading up from the floors below.
The small figure in the hammock bed stiffened immediately, his pale eyes growing round with fright. The glow worm picked up on his heightened tension and the soft light bathing the room turned from calm blue to a warning orange.
Truth found himself holding his breath, right along with his younger self. Please, Father, don’t come up, he thought. Please not tonight. Stay on the second floor. Go to sleep and in the morning you’ll feel better. You always feel better in the morning…
But the heavy steps reached the second floor landing, paused a moment, and then continued up. The small figure in the hammock bed gathered himself into an even smaller, tighter ball and his eyes squeezed shut in a desperate parody of sleep. The glow worm’s light gave him away, however, by going a deep, alarmed scarlet, casting the room into red and black shadows.
The door, the same curtain of hanging wooden beads they’d come through, rattled as a huge figure filled the doorframe. Gar-berry ale fumes flooded the air like poisoned gas.
Truth sucked in a breath as fear flooded him. He couldn’t help himself??
?that scent still affected him. Still stole the breath from his lungs and made his hands clench into helpless fists at his sides.
Suddenly he saw something his young self had missed.
The blanket! he wanted to cry. Hide it! Quickly before he sees! Before he knows your weakness!
He wanted to shout the warning aloud but his tongue seemed frozen to the roof of his mouth. Not a sound emerged, no matter how much he wanted to warn the shivering figure in the bed.
“Boy.” His father’s deep, rough voice held no love tonight. Sometimes he came upstairs and cried over Truth, mourning the passing of those he had lost. Sometimes he told stories of the strange and wonderful planet called Twin Moons where everyone had a brother and no one was ever alone, ever.
Truth sensed that tonight there would be no crying or story telling. Feels Pain was well into his cups tonight. He was much more likely to dish out a hard clout to the face than a heart warming tale of the homeland.
“Boy!” his father said again, louder.
The small figure in the hammock bed twitched but made no reply.
I’m asleep. Asleep. Asleep, Truth could almost hear his younger self thinking. Maybe he’ll leave me alone if he thinks I’m asleep.
Feels Pain might have, too. Sometimes it worked to pretend—to play dead as it were.
It almost worked tonight. The older male stood swaying just inside the doorway, struggling to make out his son’s small form in the glow worm’s baleful crimson glow. The boy was quiet and perfectly still. Truth knew his younger self was holding his breath because he was too—he couldn’t help it. Feels Pain was just turning his ponderous bulk to go back down the stairs when he stopped and stared.
With a sinking heart, Truth saw that his father’s drink-blurred eyes had caught sight of something—the secret something young Truth had forgotten to hide.
“What’s this?” With one long stride his father was at the side of the swinging hammock which hung chest high to him. One hand snatched the ragged bit of blanket from the shivering form of his son and the other yanked the hammock, tipping it over and spilling young Truth onto the hard wooden floor.
Truth watched as the younger version of himself stumbled to his feet, one arm already raised to shield his face.
“I asked you a question! What…is…this?” Feels Pain bawled, shaking the bit of blanket in young Truth’s face. In his meaty fist, it looked no bigger than a rag.
“It’s…it is…” Truth’s mouth worked, trying to think what to say. “Please, Apa,” he whispered at last. “Apologies but I…I was so cold.”
“Cold? Cold?” his father raged. “Don’t you mean weak, boy? It’s always cold here on Pax—you learn to bear it. Do you ever hear your half brothers moaning and complaining of the cold?”
“No, but…they’re half Rai’ku,” young Truth objected. “Their blood runs hot.”
“Which means you must be all Rai’ku,” Feels Pain bellowed. “You must be better than any of them.” He ripped the already ragged blanket to tiny shreds and tossed them to the floor. “There,” he told the young Truth who was standing silently, his eyes wide and frightened. “I’m doing you a favor, boy. You have to be tough to survive on Pax. It’s every male for himself here—nobody to back you up or care if you live or die. Not like—” He broke off abruptly and might have left but the young Truth chose this moment to speak up.
“Not like Twin Moons, is that right, Apa?” he asked softly. “Would I have a brother too, if we lived there? Someone to be with me always?”
Feels Pain rounded on the slight figure like a wounded beast. His eyes were red and bloodshot and the smell of fermented gar-berries was strong on his breath.
“You don’t need anyone to be with you,” he snarled at Truth. “Don’t need anyone but yourself. Get that straight. Look at me…” He’d gestured drunkenly, throwing out one arm. “I got no one. My brother and your mother both gone. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But I’m fine. Got a whole new life here and so do you. So stop dwelling in the past.”
“But if I had a brother—”
The young Truth didn’t get to finish. A hard, heavy hand slapped him, rocking his head back on his slender neck and knocking him to his knees.
“Shut the fuck up about that now!” Feels Pain roared harshly. “You haven’t got any fucking brother and you don’t need one. Never let me hear you talk about this shit again.”
“A…apologies,” Truth’s younger self whispered. He had one small hand to his throbbing cheek and his eyes were filled with tears but somehow he kept them from falling.
Truth knew why—he didn’t want to shame himself before his father. Beside him, he could hear Becca suck in her breath in horror and Far made a low, angry exclamation under his breath.
“Save your outrage,” he said blandly, as Feels Pain reached for the trembling figure of his younger self again. “This isn’t over yet and it won’t be for a while.”
He wanted to close his eyes, to stop watching, but somehow he couldn’t. What is the point of this? Why is the Mindscape forcing me to go through this again, to endure not only one of the most vicious beatings my father ever gave me but to double my misery by shaming me before my brother and the female I love? Why—?
“You useless little bastard!” Feel’s Pain roared, breaking through his frantic thoughts. “This is all your fault—yours! If you hadn’t come along when you did, we could’ve folded space. The attack never would have happened. I would still have them with me instead of you.”
He shook the frail figure mercilessly as he shouted but as ugly as it looked, Truth knew things were only going to get worse. As soon as Feels Pain finished shouting blame and recriminations, the beating would begin. And this, he remembered with horrid clarity, was going to be a bad one. Maybe the worst one he had ever survived at the hands of his drunken father.
As if to underline his thoughts, Feels Pain gripped his son by the hair and raised one hard fist above his head. Sometimes he was content to slap but tonight he obviously needed to punch something—or someone. And the defenseless boy was handy—an easy target.
The adult Truth, watching, knew what was coming next. How could he not? Hadn’t he lived through this night before? Once again he wanted to warn or protect his younger self but he found he was unable to move or speak. Rooted to the spot, he could only watch as things went horribly wrong.
But just as the blow started to fall, someone rushed between the young Truth and his father.
“Stop!” a deep, angry voice commanded. “You hit him again and I swear to the Goddess I’ll break both your arms.”
Far? Truth couldn’t even say his brother’s name out loud—his tongue was still frozen to the roof of his mouth.
“Far?” Becca breathed beside him, also apparently surprised. “Will that work? Can he actually—?”
“I don’t think so,” Truth muttered, his tongue finally unfreezing. “Surely this is just a memory the Mindscape is showing us. I don’t see how Far could alter it.”
But even as he spoke, Feels Pain swung angrily. Stepping forward, the light twin blocked the blow meant for the boy Truth, taking the punch to his own chest and shielding the slight, trembling figure with his much larger body.
“Hey? What…?” Feels Pain was clearly confused. He had meant to punch his son in the face and instead, his fist had connected with…what? He looked around wildly, his bloodshot eyes wide in the gloom. “Who’s there?”
“I am,” Far growled. “Now let him go!” He gripped the arm Feels Pain was holding the young Truth with in a punishing grip. Truth saw his twin’s fingers pierce inward, digging like claws into the nerve center of the older male’s elbow.
With a confused cry, Feels Pain abruptly released his son’s hair and stumbled back a step. He was still looking wildly all around, clearly unable to see his attacker.
Far pressed his advantage, pushing the older male hard in the chest.
“Leave him alone from now on,” he snarled. “If you don’
t I swear I’ll come back and kill you! He’s not responsible for your pain—he’s your son. And you’re his father—act like one!”
“Who…what…? What in the Seven Hells?” Shaking his head, Feels Pain turned heavily and ran out the door, the long strands of wooden beads clicking wildly in his wake. Heavy tromping was heard on the stairs and then the front door slammed hard.
“He’s gone.” The high, soft voice came from the last person Truth had expected to speak—his younger self. “He’s gone,” young Truth said again, looking up at Far. “You made him go away. Who are you?”
“I don’t understand,” Becca murmured to Truth. “Why can you—young you, I mean—see Far when your father obviously couldn’t?”
Truth shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s clear he can see him. Look.”
“Who are you?” his younger self asked again, looking up in awe at Far.
“I’m your…I’m someone who cares.” Far dropped to one knee and put an arm around the boy’s thin shoulders. “Are you all right? That was quite a blow he gave you. I’m sorry I wasn’t in time to stop it.”
“It’s all right.” Young Truth raised his chin. “Apa was right to strike me. I was…out of line. I did not…behave as a Rai’ku male should.”
“Oh, Truth…” Far shook his head. Now that the violence was ended, the glowing light above them had turned to a more neutral blue-green. Truth thought that his twin’s dark eyes looked filled with sorrow in the shifting shadows. “No one deserves to be struck like that,” he murmured to the boy. “And no matter what your father says, you are not the cause of his pain.”
“Yes, I am. He…he says it all the time. Everything that ha-happened t-to him…everything. It’s all m-my fault!” Young Truth’s lower lip trembled. He took a deep breath which turned into a hitching sob. Though he was clearly trying to keep from crying, a single, traitorous tear escaped his wide gray eyes. He dashed it away with a swift, jerky motion of the back of his hand.