My senses strobed as I heard my name echo inside/outside my head. I picked him up, grimacing as I held his weight and thinking that if this was life after death, nothing I knew could prove it wasn’t the real thing.
“Mommy!”
I turned around, holding him close, to see Miya sitting on her sleep mat, smiling at us. She came into the room and put her arms around us. (We aren’t ghosts, nasheirtah,) she thought. (Namaste.…)
We are one. It was a long minute before I trusted myself to speak, even to think. Because all I had to do to speak was to think, now. (Joby … he’s walking, by himself.) That part still seemed unreal. (How is it possible—?)
(There are ke—rhythms the an lirr sense: currents of the air and water, and even within the earth, lines of electromagnetic force. Where certain patterns form, the an lirr think of certain things. We call those places shue; the place where the oyasin took us to find our Way was also one. She told me that the monastery was built here because here the an lirr had thought about healing.…) I felt her grope for a way to show me more clearly. Even mind-to-mind it was hard for her to explain to me a concept so alien to anything in my experience—to the Human way, the only way of interacting with the universe around me that I’d ever known.
I remembered her vision of the body as a bioelectric system as well as a biochemical one, her awareness that most Humans barely got half the equation that made a living being whole. Deadeye had called Human brains the cells that made up the artificial intelligences that were interstellar combines’ microprocessors for an organic computer. I felt her catch the image and show me the starport computer’s secret sentience, how it had become more than the sum of its parts … like the an lirr.
A taku fluttered over my head. Joby put his hand up, and the taku settled on his fingers. I stiffened as he brought it down to eye level, but it didn’t react to me, except to give me an opal-eyed glance as it climbed along his arm and settled on his shoulder.
I took a deep breath and followed Miya’s lead as she started on across the chamber where taku nested. Joby trailed behind us, the taku still balancing precariously on his small shoulder. I was surprised that the chamber floor was clean, like even the taku regarded this as a sanctuary and didn’t shit on the floor.
Beyond that space was one of the winding hallways Hydrans seemed to prefer, maybe for aesthetic reasons, maybe because when they were in a hurry they could always teleport. It still took painful effort just to stay on my feet, but I didn’t feel any need to hurry now. I realized that all my life up to this point had seemed to be about urgency. Now I couldn’t remember why. Even my thoughts seemed to move in slow motion here, my mind taking in every detail of the monastery’s austere grace: the ways that it was different from the Council Hall, the ways it was the same. My senses missed nothing, as if I was everywhere at once, like the an lirr.
Miya walked beside me, our bodies touching; I felt her keeping track of Joby’s pace and mine. There were doorways along the corridor. Most of their ancient, metal-bossed doors stood open, revealing small unadorned rooms that reminded me of Grandmother.
I shied from her memory, looking straight ahead as Miya led us into another large chamber. It was echoingly empty, like all the rest had been. At its far end I saw a balcony opening on more reaches of sky.
It occurred to me then to be surprised I wasn’t colder, because I knew how cold it had been outside. As we stepped onto the balcony I felt the soft whisper of some kind of energy field and realized that somewhere here was centuries-old Hydran technology that still functioned, without the input of Miya or anyone else.
And then I forgot even that as I reached the featureless wall at the balcony’s edge. The sanctuary sat on a ledge halfway up the nearly sheer wall of a cliff in the same untouched reef the research team had come to study. I looked out and down, up again, before the river-eaten depths below me had time to really register. The walls of the monastery flowed into the mountain wall above us; the incredible landscape of the eroded reef matrix lay all around us. I sucked in a breath, inhaling beauty, even as I searched the horizon for Tau Riverton, for anything from the world we’d left behind.
(We’re two hundred kilometers from Riverton,) Miya thought. (Deep in the Homeland. The Humans never come out this far; even our own people have almost abandoned the interior, since there are so few of us now … since the an lirr abandoned us.)
I took another deep breath; let it out in a sigh. At the limits of my sight the reefs finally ended, their surreal topography flowing out onto a barren plain.
I let my gaze drop again and saw a bridge spanning the ravine. Below the monastery there was a narrow footpath worn into the sheer slope of the cliffside. I remembered Hanjen walking out from Freaktown to his meeting with Grandmother. I wondered whether Hydrans had once made pilgrimages all the way to this place on foot.
(I don’t know,) Miya answered. (I only know that visitors approached the shue on foot if they were able to walk. And they left on foot when they were healed.)
Joby hung on the balcony wall, doing his best to imitate the high skreeling of the taku that sailed in and out above our heads. I watched him watching them, watched him laugh and move in ways that I’d taken for granted all my life. I felt sourceless wonder fill me again. (What’s happened to us here … does it last? If we leave this place, do we … change back?)
She looked down, and I didn’t really need an answer. I swore softly under my breath. She touched my arm, anchoring me in the present. (Some of it lasts,) she thought gently. (The longer we can stay, the more the changes will imprint. Your mind is free here; you’re free to heal your mind the way you’ve healed your body, if—)
(If—?) I thought, when she didn’t go on.
(If you have enough faith.)
(Faith?) I thought. The only thing I believed in was the cosmic rule that said if anything could go wrong, it would. (It’s against my religion.) I glanced away, my mouth twisting.
(Faith in yourself is all the faith you need.) As I turned back, she looked in through my eyes like I’d suddenly become transparent. (You’ve never trusted yourself the way you’ve trusted me.…) Her mind filled with a kind of wonder.
(What about Joby?) I glanced at him, suddenly needing an excuse to look away.
I felt her surprise turn to a pang of disappointment. (Freedom to heal is what I wanted this place to give him too,) she said evenly. But her thoughts had shifted, withdrawing. I felt seeds of panic sprout inside me as the fear of losing her, and losing my psi again, made my control slip as my mind huddled down into the dark place where there was no pain, no betrayal—nothing left to lose.
Miya kept her eyes on Joby, but I felt the effort it cost her to let me retreat without following. (He wants this so much.…) She went on like I couldn’t sense her strain, like I didn’t know that she knew exactly what was going on inside me. (But for him it’s a matter of patterning, imprinting. How well the patterning will last depends on how long he can stay here—Joby!) Her mind called out suddenly, sharply, as he scrambled up the rough wall of the balcony to teeter near its top, reaching up. He swayed, startled, even as she disappeared from beside me with a thought, reappeared beside him, holding out her arms as he toppled back into them. (Go slowly, my heart!) she thought, rocking him gently, kissing the top of his head. He squirmed, but he didn’t try to escape.
I wondered what Joby’s parents would think if they could see him now … wondered what they were thinking right now. I rested against the cold stone beside the doorway, trying to forget my own mind and its problems, as a wave of dizziness warned me I was pushing my body too hard.
Miya glanced at me. She let Joby go again. A cold gust of wind whipped her hair across her face; she brushed it away like tears as Joby moved uncertainly toward me and caught at my arms.
I held on to him, barely, swallowing a grunt of pain as the collision with his body seemed to jar every half-healed bone and ligament in my own.
Joby sucked in his breath like he was the one in
pain as I let him go, settling him on his feet.
(Cat!) he cried, hanging on my pants leg. (You hurt! You hurt—?)
“No, it’s all ri—” I broke off, staring down at him. I looked up at Miya, back at Joby again. “What … what did you say?” (What did he say? Miya—?)
“It’s okay?” Joby repeated, pulling at the ruins of my coat.
I kneeled down beside him, nodding, stroking his hair as I looked into his eyes—wide brown eyes with perfectly round Human pupils. (It’s okay. I’m okay.) I watched his face ease. He was reading my thoughts.… I hadn’t just imagined before that his mind seemed as open to me as Miya’s. I sat down, because it was easier, and he sat down beside me, mimicking my every move. Miya crossed the balcony to us, limned by brightness. (What’s going on?) I asked. (You can’t tell me the reefs made him a telepath—)
(Yes, I can,) she said quietly. (But not yesterday. Before he was born.)
I stared at her. (You’re saying—the accident, when his mother … that changed him?)
She nodded.
(That’s im—) I broke off as another taku sailed over my head, and Joby pulled himself up to follow it. (Do his parents know? Does anyone?)
She shook her head. (I was afraid to tell them.) She gazed out across the reefs. (I didn’t know what they’d do … what Tau would do.)
I grimaced. If Tau knew something in the reefs could do that to a Human fetus—accidentally or otherwise—who knew how they’d react: whether they’d try to synthesize and exploit whatever had played shuffle-brain with Joby’s mind or whether they’d want to destroy all evidence of something they might see as a threat that could panic their entire population. Either way, I didn’t see it meaning anything but grief for Joby. (Is his being a psion what lets you work with him like you did?)
She shook her head, squatting down beside me, out of the wind. Her eyes tracked Joby wherever he went. (Sometimes it makes it harder. He can resist me, resist himself, without meaning to, in ways he’s too young to understand. But if he can learn to control his Gift, it will make learning to use his body that much easier. He could have a normal life.…)
“Then you’d better teach him how to hide his psi too.…” I said out loud. I dropped back into telepathic speech, without being able to lose the bitterness, (If you really want him to have a normal life in a combine world.)
She looked at me, her gaze both sharp and full of sympathy. She glanced away again.
“Hungry,” Joby announced, coming back to plop down between us. “Mommy, hungry—” He pointed at his stomach.
Miya’s face flickered, showing him a smile that wasn’t in her thoughts. “Come on, then.” She picked up a pot that sat stonelike in the shadows against the wall. I realized there were other bags and containers lined up on the balcony, bulging with supplies. Miya took Joby’s hand. She glanced back at me, waiting while I got my own feet under me.
“Where did you get the food?” I asked.
“In town.”
“How?”
“I had some money put away.”
“You accessed your credit line?” I said, incredulous. “They’ll trace you—”
She held up her bare wrist, a silent rebuttal. “Markers. I’ve been careful,” she murmured, leading us back through the monastery. We followed a curving, timeworn tunnel to a lower level of the building, to what must have been its kitchen once. She set the pot down on the surface of something I didn’t recognize as a cook unit until a hinged metal door opened silently in its side.
“Me!” Joby said. “I do it!”
“No,” Miya answered, like she’d said it too many times before. “Too hard. When you’re older.” She reached in through the opening, palm out, interacting with a technology far older than the force screen we’d just left behind us, but in a piece of hardware that looked much newer. I felt her begin to gather energy, drawing it in, focusing it, directing it, her face clenched with strain.
The air around us seemed to grow colder as I waited, watching like Joby did, both of us as still as if we were hypnotized. Finally there was a sharp crack and a blaze of light/heat from inside the stove’s belly. Miya jerked her hand back, slamming the grate, breathing hard. She wiped her forehead with a soot-covered hand, wiping away sweat, leaving a black smear. (It must get easier with practice,) she thought ruefully.
I wiped the smear of ash gently from her face and took her blackened hand in mind. Her hand was ice-cold; she shivered, standing close to the heat the stove was beginning to put out, like lighting it had drained her own body heat.
“What about your sister?” I asked, finally, as her hands warmed and color came back into her face. “Did you see her in town?”
She looked up at me. (No …) she whispered, her reluctance almost suffocating the word. There was fear inside her, but not fear of Naoh. I realized suddenly that she was afraid of learning what had happened to me, what Naoh had done after she’d taken Joby away … after she’d abandoned me, again. Because she knew how it had ended.
(Don’t,) I thought. (Don’t blame yourself. You made the right choice.)
(What did she do?) she asked at last, blinking too much.
(She … they …) Suddenly I was floundering out of my depth in rage/disgust/humiliation. They’d done to me exactly what Humans had always done.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. “I don’t remember. They just dumped me in the middle of nowhere.”
“Bian.” Miya caught at my arm; I moved out of reach.
“Hungry—” Joby began to chant impatiently, trying to drown out emotions he sensed but couldn’t understand. “Hungry. Hungry, hungry—”
Miya hushed him with a distracted thought, sent him away to fetch bowls. “Cat.” She used my Human name, more hesitantly, when I didn’t answer. “Tell me.” Her hand closed over my arm this time, tightened, not letting me go.
My own hand closed over Wauno’s medicine pouch. Her glance went to it; I saw her incomprehension. Looking down, I forced myself to open my mind, setting free the memories of how Naoh had used me to get what she wanted.
I felt Miya’s mind pull apart the nested layers of Naoh’s revenge until she found its heart: the betrayal that Naoh felt every time she looked at us and looked into my eyes. Hydran eyes in a too-Human face, in a too-Human body that was helpless against her.…
Miya lost control, slipped and fell through my memories into her own: Memories of the things that Naoh had done, the choices she’d made, because of Navu … of Hydrans and Humans, love and hate, nasheirtah, and namaste—
(What about Naoh and Navu?) I demanded. (What about them—?)
Miya cried out; or maybe it was only what happened in my head then that blistered my reeling thoughts.
I broke free, swearing, and left the room. I blundered through the darkened halls of the empty monastery until my body couldn’t go on. It gave out, finally, at the entrance to a room with no windows, no skylights, only that single opening, so low that I hit my head on it, swearing again as I entered. I sat down with my back against a wall and covered my face with my hands. It was impossible—to live the way I’d lived, to have been Human for so long, and not have secrets you never wanted to see the light of day. Impossible to share everything—even if it meant losing everything. I wondered whether it was really possible for anyone, even the Hydrans.…
I sat in the dark for a long time with all my senses on hold, letting need and futility play their circle game until they drained the last of my strength.
And then someone touched my shoulder. I looked up, expecting Miya—found Joby staring back at me with something like awe. His grinning face glowed with colored light. The abstract patterns shifted as he craned his neck to peer past me. “Look!” he said, pointing. “Look what you made.”
I looked over my shoulder, realizing that the room wasn’t dark anymore; it was filled with eerie luminescence. My breath caught as I saw the wall behind me—the multicolored imprint of my body shining in the dark, neon colors bleeding outward from the contact p
oint. “Damn…” I whispered, in disbelief.
Joby pressed his hands against the wall. Glowing handprints set off colors that spread in all directions from his touch. He pressed his whole body against the wall, giggling as he flung his arms wide, flattening his nose as he set off more luminescence, sending his colors rippling outward until they collided with my own.
I levered myself up the wall, trailing a bright smear. I pressed my own hands against the invisible surface, triggering more light. The colors we’d set off already didn’t fade; they kept spreading, widening, echoing through each other like chords of music.
Suddenly a new pattern of light flickered across the wall, went soaring toward the ceiling without either of us setting it off.
(It isn’t your touch,) Miya’s voice said inside me. (It’s your Gift.) She entered the darkened room, her face luminous with reflected light and perfectly expressionless with concentration as she lit up more and more of the darkness.
I stood away from the wall, breaking my physical contact with its surface, trying to see whether the patterns my body had been creating would stop.
They didn’t; they went on forming like frost, following my thought, giving form to my every glance and whim. Joby ignored us both, blissfully lost in uncanny fingerpainting, in rolling his body along the wall in a wash of incandescence.
I shook my head; the colors zigzagged like lightning. (But I’m not a teek—)
(Any manifestation of the Gift will trigger it,) Miya said.
I thought of the Hydran picture globes; how once I’d been able to change the images hidden inside with a thought. (What was this used for?)
(Beauty—?) Her mental shrug told me she had no more idea than I did. (Maybe it doesn’t matter,) she thought, and I felt her smile. (Does it?)
I shook my head, watching Joby’s silhouette dance across the spectrum in front of us. But then I felt Wauno’s medicine pouch bat softly against my wrist and sudden desolation filled me—loss, regret—as if she’d told me a lie.
(What? What is it?) She touched the pouch uncertainly.