For a moment I actually wondered how I could make that happen. And then I canceled the search. I remembered Natan Isplanasky, the head of Contract Labor, the single genuine human being left in the entire FTA as far as I could tell: A man without a life of his own, who spent most of his waking hours jacked into the Federation Net just to track Contract Labor’s highest levels of operation. The man that I’d told HARM could help them.
At the rate things were falling apart here, I wasn’t sure a message would even reach Isplanasky before it was too late. There was still no direct faster-than-light communication in the Federation. Any messages that went outside a single solar system went on a ship, just like the humans who sent and received them. Transmission cost more than I wanted to think about, and it would be days before an answer came, even longer before there could be any significant change in the situation.
And yet, if my information reached Isplanasky in time, the system might still work for me, this once. If there was a better answer, I was too exhausted to see it. I input a request for an inter-world message relay.
I fed my message into the Net; watched the credit line on my databand take a nosedive. I started back across the empty lobby toward the hotel entrance.
I stopped again when I was almost to the door. A Tau Corpse was standing outside, talking to one of the hotel people. He looked up at me, touched the edge of his helmet in a salute, and smiled. It wasn’t a meaningless smile. He went on watching me until finally I turned around and went back inside.
By the time I reached my room, the message light was blinking on the console. I requested the message, half afraid of anything that might appear on the screen, because I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to see there right now.
What did come up on the screen was so unexpected that I read it twice before I believed it: The message you wish to send has been rejected by Tau’s censors.
I couldn’t reach Isplanasky. Probably I couldn’t reach anyone else, now. I wondered whether the door to my hotel room would open for me; whether they’d sealed me in. I didn’t try it to find out.
I wore a path in the room’s carpet, climbed its walls with my mind as I tried to find a way out of the trap that Refuge had suddenly become for me. Nothing else happened for hours. I ordered room service. The food came out of the service unit in the wall, and I didn’t eat it. Finally I lay down and closed my eyes, letting my body’s exhaustion seep into my brain, hoping that nothing would happen faster if I slept through it.
I slept. I dreamed, my mind filled with a bleak twilight landscape that I had to keep moving through, making wrong turn after wrong turn on a journey I couldn’t turn back from. The light never changed and the landscape never changed, and it seemed to me that I would never make any progress toward a goal I couldn’t name.…
But then after an eternity lost, the light began to grow, like an unspoken whisper murmuring my secret name, and I realized that I’d always known what I’d been searching for.…
For someone who could flow through my solid flesh as though it was an illusion, to touch me like this, shocking alive every nerve ending in my body. Pleasure sang through me at the speed of thought as I opened to a timeless place …
I opened my eyes, feeling my body stretch like a satisfied animal below the unfocused form hovering over me. “Wha—?” I blinked, trying to make the face one I knew.…
“Jeezu!” I sat up, half scrambling backward on the bed. “Miya—”
She stood over me, her own face stricken, gesturing desperately with her hands for me to be quiet.
Miya. I mouthed the word silently; touched her lips with uncertain fingers. She closed her eyes as if it had been a kiss, and color rose in her cheeks. It took all the control I had then not to pull her down and make the kiss real. I could barely tell what was a dream now, what she’d been doing to me before I woke up. Whatever it was, it left me feeling stupefied, aroused, needing—“What?” I whispered, shaking my head.
She made a gesture like she thought—or maybe knew—that the room was bugged. I got up from the bed, wondering whether she was right. If she was, there was probably visual or infrared too, and nothing was safe.
I looked toward the door. Our only choice was to get out now, but not that way. There was only one way that we could be certain of.
Looking back at Miya, I realized that she already knew it. She took hold of my arms; I felt her mind make contact, preparing us for a teleport—
The door exploded behind us. The window/wall in front of us gaped on open sky and a gleaming mass of CorpSec technology. Uniformed bodies were everywhere. Something exploded in the heart of the room before I could even react, knocking me flat, filling the air with fog. I heard Miya cry out, felt my own shout of disbelief sucked out of my lungs.
Everything turned inside out, and flat on my back on the floor, I felt myself falling—
* * *
I hit the floor again, hard. But it wasn’t my floor. Not even a floor, but the hard ground in some back alley … in Freaktown. I staggered to my feet, swearing, bruised, shaking myself out.
Naoh stood in front of me, her eyes burning. Behind her I could see the brink of the canyon, and Tau Riverton in the distance. Looking back into her eyes, all I could think was that HARM had kidnapped me: they thought I’d betrayed them, and even if they didn’t kill me Borosage would never let me get back across the river.…
But then I remembered Miya, the way she’d looked at me in the moment before the Corpses had burst in on us. Miya.
I didn’t see her. The fear that she’d been left behind broke Naoh’s spell, closed my throat as I turned—
Miya was behind me, sprawled on the ground like I’d been, slowly picking herself up. She moved like her body had become a stranger to her, and her face was the color of ash. Two of the HARM members helped her to her feet.
I stumbled to her side, ignoring the rest of them. “Miy’… awright—? Wha’ happ’n’?” I broke off as the words registered, as I heard the slurring. I shook my head again, swimming through confusion as thick as sewage, not understanding why I sounded like I’d been drugged. Only one thing was clear in my mind: Tau had betrayed me again. And not just me this time.
Miya held her head, looking glazed. She said something to me, slurring, and I couldn’t make it out. She looked away again, searching restlessly until she spotted the bundle in someone’s arms that I realized was Joby. She went to him, unsteadily, and took him into her own arms.
“They were waiting,” Naoh said, her voice hard. “It was a trap. You were the bait. They thought we wouldn’t know. Miya made a joining with me, in case this happened—” She gestured at us, disgusted.
Miya held Joby, forehead to forehead with him, smiling as their eyes met. I watched them together, tenderness and envy spilling through my senses like the taste of honey fruit. I looked back at Naoh. “Why’d you brin’ me?” I asked, barely remembering to ask it in Hydran. My speech was starting to clear up as quickly as it had gone out of control.
Naoh glanced at Miya, as if it hadn’t been her idea, as if she wanted to hear the reason herself.
“He didn’ know … was a trap.” Miya pushed the words out of her mouth like someone spitting stones, and her face was as guarded as her sister’s. “Coul’n’ leave him to them.” She reached out to touch me, almost protectively, hesitated, glancing at Naoh.
“Thank you,” I murmured. I put out my hand, catching hold of hers as she withdrew it.
She looked down at our hands; wonder and desire poured through the contact point from her mind into mine. I sucked in a breath; my fingers tightened.
She set her own hand free suddenly, effortlessly. I felt the aftershock of her self-consciousness as my fingers closed on themselves. “I—I thought we should learn wha’ Tau said to him,” she murmured, glancing at Naoh again almost guiltily. She shook her head, worked her face muscles, as though she didn’t know what was wrong with her mouth.
“Why do we soun’ like we were drugged?” I aske
d, trying not to look as lost as I suddenly felt, not able to touch her anymore. It was cold here in the wind, and I wasn’t wearing my coat.
Miya shook her head again, but this time it was I don’t know.
Naoh glanced back and forth between us with a frown. “Miya…” she murmured, and there was something both wondering and querulous in her voice. “He is … you believe … this is your nasheirtah? Him? The halfbreed?” She glanced at me, away again.
“Did you believe you could keep it a secret, once we’d joined?” Her voice softened almost reluctantly as Miya looked away. Naoh put her hands on Miya’s shoulders while the others waiting behind her stared at the three of us, making mental comments that I probably didn’t want to hear.
Miya shook her head, resting her own hands on her sister’s, but looking at me.
“Miya—?” I murmured, not understanding what was going on between them or what my part in it was.
“He doesn’t know?” Naoh murmured, looking at me now too. “He doesn’t even know what that means?” There was astonishment in her voice this time, and disbelief, even indignation. I couldn’t tell which responses were intended for Miya and which were aimed at me. “She believes you are her nasheirtah,” she said to me deliberately. “Her soulmate.… We believe that in a lifetime there is only one person who is meant to be for each of us. The first time she met you, she knew.…” She looked back at her sister. “But you didn’t tell him.”
Miya wouldn’t look at either of us now. She could have been on the other side of the world, for all the sense of her there was in my mind. “Naoh, stop—” she whispered.
“Miya?” I said again, my own voice faltering as she refused to meet my eyes. I wondered whether she was ashamed or simply afraid—ashamed to have the others know the truth, afraid her sister would reject her … afraid that I would. “Miya.…” I touched her face gently.
She looked up at me, startled. I saw the look in her eyes, the fear of finding nothing when my eyes looked back at her. I remembered last night: falling asleep inside the warm, protected shelter of her body, her mind … waking up cold and empty and alone, afraid that I’d wake up cold and empty forever.…
“I know,” I whispered. “I do.…” I watched the fear change to relief, and then, uncertainly, into joy. I leaned past Joby’s curious stare and kissed her; felt the hungry pressure of her lips on mine jump-start the flow of thought and emotion between us. Joy and terror and longing took my breath away.
And then Naoh’s psi smashed our mindlink like a hurled rock. In the split second before I lost contact I felt her shock at encountering my mind defenseless and online; felt the thorn-thicket of her emotions: surprise/pain/joy/envy/curiosity/helpless anger.…
And then all three of us were suddenly alone, blinking like the daylight was a surprise, as we were dragged neuron by neuron back into the world we shared with the others.
“We can’t stay here,” Naoh said sharply, as if that was really all that had been on her mind. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” I said, my voice still husky. “The Corpses—they’ll track me. You’re not safe as long as I have this.” I touched my databand. I remembered how much it had meant to me to finally put one on; what it had cost me to earn the right to wear one. What life had been like without one.
I turned to Miya, where she stood holding Joby in her arms, seeing the way she looked at me: “I couldn’t leave him,” she’d said. Joby. Or me. I looked away at Tau Riverton, searching my mind for a single thing I’d left undone across the river that had any meaning, compared to anything that waited to be done over here. Searching it for a single person I’d shared something with that had any real meaning, compared to what I’d found with Miya.…
I pressed the thumb-lock on my databand. I caught its weight in my hand as it dropped off my wrist.
“What are you doing—?” Miya said, her voice as incredulous as any Human’s.
“I can’t wear this anymore,” I said. “Humans killed my mother because she was Hydran. My father was Human; he left me in the gutter because I was Hydran. I’m Hydran—!” I pitched the databand away from me as hard as I could, watched it, and everything it stood for, go spiraling out over the rim of the canyon, down, down into the bronze waterflow a hundred meters below. I turned back to Miya’s disbelieving eyes. “And you are my nasheirtah.”
The others were all staring at me with the same disbelief, even Naoh. “Call me Bian,” I said.
Miya pressed her face against my shoulder as I held her, and Joby, closed in my arms. “Bian,” she whispered. “Welcome home.” She moved aside to let Naoh embrace me like a lost brother … a lost lover. There was a gentleness in Naoh’s touch that I hadn’t thought she was capable of; something in her eyes that was haunted but almost tender as she murmured, “Namaste, Bian. Bring my sister joy. At least one of us should have it forever.…”
I didn’t say anything, couldn’t, as one by one the others did the same.
FIFTEEN
THEY TOOK ME somewhere else, then, before Borosage could take us all out right where we stood … before I really had time to think about the consequences of what I’d done.
I reoriented, supported by Miya and Naoh. We were standing in a bleak, dusty, run-down space too much like the one I’d visited last night. Only the worn blanket in place of a worn rug in the center of the room made me certain we were actually somewhere else. I realized then that rooms like this might be all I saw, how I lived, for the rest of my life.
I looked back at Miya and realized the thought didn’t even bother me. I glanced from one face to another, surrounded by the band of Hydran outcasts who’d been strangers to me only minutes ago. Now, with the suddenness of the teleport itself, they’d become my family.
“If you are going to be one of us, you should look like us, Bian,” Soral said. He shut his eyes as if he was concentrating. Suddenly he was holding a shirt—one of the long, side-fastened traditional tunics that they were all wearing, even Miya now. “Here,” he said, and let it go. The shirt rose into the air and hung above my head. The others watched, grinning and pointing.
I looked up at it, and felt a sudden chill. I looked down again, startled, and suddenly I wasn’t wearing any shirt; my shirt and Deadeye’s sweater lay in a heap on the floor at Naoh’s feet. She looked me up and down. So did the others, with a frank curiosity that told me they’d never seen a Human naked, or even a half Human half naked. They almost seemed disappointed that nothing worth mentioning was different from the neck down. I clutched the top of my pants with both hands. “These stay,” I said, not smiling.
They laughed and nodded, nudging each other. Naoh’s laughter was high and giddy as the shirt suddenly dropped out of the air onto my head. It slithered its way down around my neck like something alive.
I pushed my arms into the sleeves and fastened it, managing a smile of my own. The tunic’s material was softer and warmer than it looked, and probably a lot older.
“Namaste,” I said, realizing as I said it that it also meant “thank you.” Soral bowed slightly to me; I bent my head to him, to them all.
Miya set Joby on the floor at her feet. A pile of blocks and other toys appeared around him. She pulled the bandana gently from my hair. I stood motionless, the center of attention but for once not uncomfortable about it, as her cool fingers lifted my hair off the back of my neck.
Tiene passed her one of the ornate metal clips the others, both men and women, wore to hold their long hair in an elaborate knot on top of their heads. The clip hovered in front of my eyes while Miya gathered and worked with my hair. I couldn’t tell whether she used only her hands to do it. She reached into the air for the clip, murmured her satisfaction as I felt her fasten it.
“There, Bian,” she said, “my nasheirtah.” Her satisfaction and pleasure were reflected in the faces all around me, in a way that made me feel there was more to this part of the ritual of transformation than I could appreciate with only five senses.
A woman named
Talan offered me a metal belt. It had been made out of scrap wire woven into patterns as subtle as the hair clasps. A man named Sath gave me a thong necklace with a pendant of carved agate. The others came forward one by one, offering me a vest, necklaces, rings, a pouch to hang at my belt, even a coat that was worn but warm, until my transformation into one of them was complete.
We ate stale flatbread and drank steaming black tea, which Miya called pon, while I told them everything: That Sand was gone. That the Feds might as well be. That Borosage was in charge, with no one standing in his way. That he’d said he would make Freaktown pay; the only question was how much, how soon.
“Is that all?” Naoh demanded, her usual impatience back and edged with disappointment. “You said that you could help us, Bian. Were all those things you promised us last night nothing—just talk?” She made talk a dirty word. She glanced at Miya as she said it, another of those looks I couldn’t read.
I leaned against the wall, resting my back. “Tau blocked me at every turn. Even Perrymeade is afraid to stand up for your people now, because Miya took Joby.” I glanced away, so that I didn’t have to see her expression change. “Joby doesn’t matter to someone like Borosage—or to the kind of people who control Tau’s government. Maybe they even want him out of the way, because Tau’s negligence is responsible for what happened to him.”
Joby sat on the floor beside me playing with a scatter of carved cubes, stacking them up, knocking them down, smiling but silent, like he always was. Miya sat beside him. She looked up suddenly over the rim of her cup and I saw the guilt in her eyes.