I fused the defenses he’d torn loose, choked off the horror before my mind had to put a name to it. And then I held him—letting my own rage against what he was doing feed, focusing a thought from somewhere, (C-A-T spells Cat.) I built on it, strand on strand, to thicken a shield and force him out: He didn’t have the right, nobody had the right to do this to me.… I felt surprise, but it wasn’t my surprise. He shook my mind and I slipped, but (I’m Cat … Cat … and I won’t…)
And then he twisted my mind back on itself and made me see what I was facing: see that all their strength held me—not just his mind, but his mind multiplied a hundred times over. I’d trespassed against them all. They were all there inside his mind, reaching through his eyes, holding me … his eyes burning my mind like emeralds burning, green fire, green ice, green as grass—green as mine. (No! Don’t hurt me, I’m like you! Look at my eyes, look at my eyes, they’re green!)
I stopped disappearing. One frozen moment went on and on, and then the scattered puzzle pieces of my memory came spinning back together, making me gasp, and I was whole again. But before I could do anything else, he—they—reached back through my eyes. I became a link forged into a chain, while they opened up my thoughts again, all of them together reaching into my head, shattering the walls that I’d built for my fears to hide behind—my shields, my armor, my safety, my sanity. Making me stand naked in the circle of their minds with no protection; making me feel every instant of their own lives. My mind was burning out, but I couldn’t make a sound, even inside my head; couldn’t do anything but help them.…
And then, just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer, all of it was gone. I was alone again: the deep and total bond was broken, and instead there were quiet messages forming on the surface of my mind—the only kind of contact I’d ever known before. But this time it wasn’t in a way I’d ever known it. One voice was made up of all voices, impressions formed instead of words. (And it was true … they knew my eyes, they had seen through them now; it was true), with feeling shifts inside it I didn’t understand. (They found a mirror in my mind, saw their own eyes trapped in an alien face. I was the one who would begin the righting of all wrongs.…)
But I didn’t understand it, I didn’t want to; I only wanted them out of my mind. All I could think was, (God damn you, for what you did to me!), and I threw it at them. (Everybody thinks they can use me like a garbage can. But I’m human, I have a right to keep some part of me to myself!)
Their mind touched me again, gently, weaving its hundred voices into harmony with mine—healing, fusing, comforting. Showing me that my shame was meaningless, that with them I had no need for shame. My shame melted away; my anger went with it, even though I didn’t want it to. And then I realized that all the clumsy barriers were gone that anger and fear had thrown in the way of the Gift I’d been born with. My mind’s vision was as clear as open sky.…
(Through ignorance they had trespassed in my—self. Now they tried to make amends.… But none of the other desecrators, and none of their blue-skinned slaves, had the gift of true sharing. I was the one who had been promised, but they had not realized that I would walk between worlds; not human, not one of them. They wanted to know why I was different. How had I been made this way?)
I shook my head, because it was all I could do. I thought, (I—I don’t understand. I don’t know. It just happened, I guess. But, we’re not different, really; we’re all the same), remembering what Jule had told me. (Your people and mine. That’s why I’m the way I am.) It came so easily, I didn’t know what was happening to me.
I felt the strange surprise fill my mind again, and a flicker of disgust, a wave of disbelief. (All the same, a unity? Not the mindless ones, the destroyers, the slave keepers, the savages. They were less than animals. It was the will of the One that those who mined the sacred stone be stopped … made to do no further harm.…) The image blurred behind my eyes; not death, but a nothingness, like everything I knew disappearing. (I was the one they had been told about. It had been promised long ago that one day their own would return from the stars and end their suffering exile. I was proof that the promise had been kept, and the time had come at last.) The aliens broke contact then, setting my mind free—and leaving it filled.
I stood staring at the alien’s human/inhuman face in front of me, into it, through it. Because I’d been half blind all my life, and now I could see. I was in control again, but my mind still absorbed sights and thoughts and feelings that weren’t my own, without even trying. Alien, human, everywhere—I sank into them. My mind dissolved like sea foam, until I could hardly breathe. And then the aliens disappeared, both of them winking out as if they’d never been there. After they were gone, my knees buckled and I slid down the wall.
When I finally felt like getting up again, Joraleman and Mikah were still standing where they’d stood all along. I hit Mikah and knocked him down, even though I knew it hadn’t made any difference that he’d told the aliens who I was. “Croach.”
“I’m sorry, kid,” Joraleman said. He looked dazed. “There—wasn’t anything we could do.”
“Don’t make much difference if you’re sorry now.” I shook out my hand.
Mikah got up and started to come after me, but Joraleman stopped him. “What did they do to you? What happened?”
I tried to tell him what they’d done to me, but it was too personal. I looked away, and only told him what they’d said. When I finished, Mikah said, “You hear that? They’re gonna kill us! And not him.” He glared at me. “Why should you get off? You little fuck, you’re not special. These aren’t civilized aliens, you’re not kin to them. You’re just a half-breed freak and a lying son of a bitch.” He started toward me again.
I looked at Joraleman. He didn’t say a thing, trying not to feel the same way Mikah did. I started to back away from them.
Joraleman said, “Stop it!” suddenly. Mikah shut up, but I kept on backing away. I went to a corner and sat down, watching them. Joraleman put an arm across his ribs and sat down, too. He stuck on more patches of painkiller from the aid kit. Mikah stood staring at me, his breath wheezing in his chest.
My mind was still lit up like I was doing dreamtime, although it had gotten easier to take since the aliens had disappeared. I could still feel everything Joraleman and Mikah were thinking, their fear and anger—more of it than I wanted to. I kept trying to believe it didn’t matter; I didn’t care what happened to them. But … “Look, I’ll try to find out what they’re planning for us. Maybe it’ll help.”
Joraleman glanced up, startled, from across the room. He almost smiled.
I closed my eyes and let my mind slide back into alien water, easily now, trying to find the things I had to know, and trying not to drown. These were Hydrans; they had to be, even if I didn’t know what they were doing out here so far from the rest of their kind. They were my own kind—even though my mind fought it—they knew me, had expected me. A feeling of cold wonder burst inside me. Why? How? And the answer came: (Because they existed to protect the blue stone of this world.) Telhassium ore. (They/their ancestors/their god, was/were the One, and the ore was sacred to them, giving life and light to them on this frozen piece of star. The Ancestors, the wellspring of their spirit, had gone from here long ago, but would return; it had been promised. And meanwhile they kept a sacred trust, and preserved the sacred stone.)
They remembered their ancestors’ going; they remembered everything. Their memories pooled age on age—every mind among them was bound to every other, present and past, through hundreds of years; totally, freely, holding nothing back … in a joining, the ultimate sharing of mind and soul. They were a whole people who joined and were never separate; each individual was no individual but an outlet for the whole. Every image that any of them, living or dead, had ever shared was woven into the cloth of their group mind. But the wearing of years, hardship, and change had faded and torn the oldest images, until they no longer knew the true meanings, but laid new meanings over the old.
And so I saw the truth, although I didn’t understand all of it then. That the Hydrans had come to the Crab long before the supernova’s shining dust ever showed in Ardattee’s sky. That they’d come here for the same reason the Federation had, looking for telhassium on a cooling piece of star. They’d set up a colony of their own here, and then their civilization slipped down and the Hydrans on Cinder had lost contact with the rest of their people—with the Ancestors. Cinder grew colder and colder, the humans came; time and hardship shrank the lost colony until the people no longer understood who they really were, or even why they’d come. But they still understood some things. And so they called the telhassium sacred, and the humans desecrators, and they waited, and waited.
And they were a whole people who joined. Because once, at its height, a whole civilization had been able to join. The thing that for even two human psions was a wonder had been the soul of every Hydran, had been their strength, their world, their One.… And when I touched the truth in their mind, I felt fear in a way I’d never known, of things I would never understand. Because it was something that had almost destroyed me; and yet some part of me wanted it.… My mind broke away, but I forced it back again.
(Now the time had come at last; their waiting, their exile, were coming to an end. The key to the place of evil and its destruction had been sent to them, as they had known he would be.) Me, they meant me. (Now, he would touch the spirit of the One, who would give them a sign.) And inside the matrix of the thought I saw flame.…
I fell back into the real world, and the others were still watching me.
“What is it—?” Joraleman asked.
“They’re gonna burn me!”
Mikah laughed and pointed at me.
“Shut up, you slad—”
“Shut up, both of you, we don’t have time,” Joraleman said, his voice sharp. “Tell me what you found out.” He looked back at me.
I told him all that I understood of what I’d seen. “And there’s a place filled with blue fire; it’s a holy place. They think I’m sent by their ancestors, they want me to go there and give them a sign. The hell I will. I’m not gonna be burned alive!”
“What’s going to happen to you if you won’t? What’s going to happen to us?”
I looked down. “I didn’t stop to find out. But they believe humans are ‘desecrators.’”
Joraleman sighed. “Damn.… You said the flames were ‘blue’? You saw them? Give me some details.”
“They were coming right out of the walls, out of the floor.… Wait. I saw crystals, like telhassium crystals, everywhere—hundreds of them.”
“Like the lamp over there?” He pointed. I remembered thinking that it looked peculiar. Now I finally saw why. The lamp was a bowl shielding a piece of crystal, and it was the crystal that burned.
He went over and brought it down; he moved slowly, like moving was getting to be an effort. “That’s a telhassium crystal they’re ‘burning.’ Their ‘sacred stone’ … wouldn’t you know they’re religious fanatics. Putting a concentration of the crystals together causes a spontaneous deterioration. That’s why you put them in shielded containers when you dig them out. If that’s what makes this holy place shine, then maybe you’ve got a chance. What do you think? Is this it?”
“Yeah, it looks the same. But what difference does that make? It’s still fire.”
He held out the lamp. “Put your hand into it.”
“Like hell.” I jerked back.
He passed his own hand through the shimmering light. “Ever heard of ‘cold fire’? Most of its radiation isn’t released as heat. It won’t burn you. Here.” He held it out again.
I held my breath, pulled off a glove, and stuck out my hand. I jerked it back again; but I hadn’t felt it begin to burn, so I reached out one more time. After about half a minute my fingers started to go numb. I pulled my hand out of the fire and shook it hard.
Joraleman said, “What’s wrong?”
“My hand, it feels like it’s dead.” I put my glove back on to warm my fingers.
“How long have you been at the mines?” He was thinking, (Too long: my skin was blue, he didn’t know if I could take that much poison …)
“What do you mean, ‘poison’?” I said. “What’s going to happen to me?”
He looked at me, startled. “Oh,” he said, understanding. “All right, then; since…” He grimaced. “Telhassium ore is radioactive. The level of radiation is extremely low; but it builds up in the human body, like any cumulative poison, like mercury or arsenic. Exposure to dust poisons you slowly. But contact with this ‘cold fire’ poisons you fast, the radiation level is much higher. So what happens to you depends on how long you have to make the exposure. If you can cut it short, you should be all right. If you take too long it could kill you.” Joraleman wiped his face; he was sweating now in spite of the cold. I turned away from him, from the pressure of his tension and his pain, from the blue crystal shimmering in his hands.
“Hey.” Mikah caught at Joraleman’s jacket.
Joraleman winced and dropped the lamp. The crystal imploded, throwing blue embers across the floor. He put a hand over his ribs. “What is it?”
“What good is all this doing for us? You’ve been figuring out how the freak’s gonna save his neck, but he didn’t say anything about how it’s going to help us. How about it?”
Joraleman looked at me. “He’s got a point.”
“Yeah.” I turned back to them, feeling the windowless walls closing in on me. I pulled my gloves off and started to rub my fingers. They’d been frostbitten back in Oldcity, and they ached when they got cold. “Well, they think I’m gonna work miracles. If they’re right, I’ll work one for all of us.” I pushed the corners of my mouth up.
Joraleman was getting one of the white pills out of the first-aid kit, and suddenly he reached in and pulled out something else. He caught my hand and slapped the thing down on it.
It stung. “Ow.… What was it?”
“A stimulant. If anything will help you, that should.”
I hadn’t even said I could save him. “Thanks.”
“What about us, freak?” Mikah grabbed my wrist and one of my gloves dropped.
But I only looked away, feeling something—
The Hydrans were back.
“Never mind,” Joraleman said, staring at them. “Do what you can.”
I nodded. I turned again toward the door, and the two aliens were waiting for me. They put their hands on my arms. My mind started to flow into the sea of image, and I dropped the other glove. My hands were cold. I felt a smile start to form on my mouth.
I heard Mikah say, “He wants to go with them,” but I didn’t, I didn’t.… I did.
All I could see was flame, blue into blue, burning. But I saw the Hydrans too, dozens of them.… Or maybe I only felt them, drifting, whispering against my mind; like dust against a wall, or sand, or snow, or wind. Or flame.…
And then I knew where I was, and why, and my mind was my own again. I stood inside the place that I’d seen in my mind, a shelter inside a greater cave of darkness. Its space was lined with blue crystals, piled with them, alive with their shivering light. I knew what it was I had to remember: that this wasn’t a place of ancestor spirits, that their god-self was only superstition. That all I had to do was talk to nothing, make it good, and get it over with.
But maybe I’d been wrong. Because now the things I’d seen in the mind of the Hydrans came back to me, and somewhere in my own mind there was a … presence stirring. The thing that had hungered for the wholeness of their shared lives, that knew their loss for its own; that said they were right to welcome me, to have waited for me to come home. Because I was Hydran, this was my real heritage, and I should give thanks for my returning at last.… I went down on my knees and bowed my head, answering the stranger awake in my mind; and under my knees in the floor was the silver metal of a thing that had been placed there longer ago than anything I knew of.…
But as I kneeled there I felt the deadness creeping up my arms and legs, and I knew that if I stayed much longer I wouldn’t get up again. I pushed myself to my feet and took a step, and another. It felt like someone else was doing it. But I left the holy place, and my people were waiting for me. Only two of them were physically there with me, the man and the woman; the rest were watching me through their eyes. This time my mind didn’t lose its shape. (I did what you asked—) I thought, not knowing where to begin. My stomach knotted in a sudden cramp; I put my hands over it.
(A sign. The cold fire.…) It formed in my mind with a kind of awful joy.
I thought they meant the pain, but then something caught my eyes. I looked down, and my hands were glowing blue. So was my face. I rubbed my hands on my pants; but then I remembered the dust from the mines and how it stained your skin. They’d been answered. I let my hands drop and wondered how long it would last. Maybe too long. (What happens now?), I thought.
The answer came: (You are the promised. You are the key, you will begin to unlock the future.)
I licked my lips. My tongue felt thick inside my mouth. I thought, carefully, (What about the others?), picturing (Joraleman and Mikah).
(It was my wish that the outsiders be returned to their settlement?) I felt their surprise.
(Yes! Don’t hurt them. Let them go.) I was as surprised as they were when I realized they actually cared about what I wanted.
(It would be as I asked.)
(And me?) Feeling a giddy rush of power, wondering how much I could ask of them. (I—)
They broke into my thought, (My guardians were waiting for me. I would be taken to them.)
I swallowed hard. (My guardians? Who? What—?)
But there was no answer. I let them lead me away from the shrine. There was a wide stair worn into the rock, as if they humbled themselves by coming to this place on foot. Behind us the blue glow leaped up the walls and was swallowed by the darkness. The stair spread out and down, to a ledge along the cavern wall, and the walls from there dropped away forever. There were things etched into the stone of the wall, strange symbols. I wondered what they said. The blue-silver glow behind and above us lit a path along the cliff face, along night’s edge. The thought of walking it made me feel sick. There was nothing below us but darkness, and a few sparks of blue light, far away, like stars. I was shivering with cold, and I wondered if even the Hydrans knew what was out there in the night. And then I felt myself sucked down again into the whirlpool of their mind.…