I glanced from him to Dere, back at him again, feeling a band of pain tightening in my chest. I nodded, all I could do. Knowing with a kind of despair that I did understand: that he was right; but so was Cortelyou. And that both of them were just as wrong. My hands twisted the stiff leather of my belt.
“Name his punishment,” Rubiy said softly, letting me know what he wanted to hear.
I didn’t answer.
“Go on, Cityboy!” Dere said. “You always were a leech, looking for a quick credit and an easy way out. You’re two of a kind. He’ll kill me anyway—tell him what he wants to hear. Tell him I have to die!” And his eyes under the birdwing brows begged me, (Say it, say it—)
“Kill him.” The words were acid in my mouth. “He deserves it, kill him!”
Rubiy smiled.
“Wait—” Galiess said suddenly.
But it was already happening. I felt the power surge, and Rubiy uncoiled a lash of psi energy. Dere’s face twisted; his hands flew up to his chest. His mind filled with fear and outrage and all the things you scraped up from the bottoms of nightmares, went white-black with agony.… And then it was empty, and he was falling.
The railing of the stairs bit into my spine as I sagged against it, holding myself up with my hands, blind, deaf, and numb. All my senses stopped as my mind closed down to save itself from his death. They came back little by little, until I could watch Rubiy move to Dere’s body, stand looking down at his face; still smiling the same inhuman smile. He’d reached out with his psi and stopped Dere’s heart in his chest. He’d just killed a man in the most personal way anybody could think of, but there was no sign of it on his own face. He blocked so perfectly that he didn’t feel a thing.… No. He’d felt something: he’d enjoyed it.
He turned back to me, but I kept my eyes on Dere. My mind kept searching for Dere, feeling the nothingness inside me where he’d been. I could see him, I could almost touch him; but I couldn’t feel him at all. Dead. He was dead. He was gone and he’d never come back. And it was all my fault.…
“Have no regrets,” Rubiy said. “He was our enemy.”
“He was my friend.” I looked up at him at last.
“Look at him!” Galiess moved suddenly, the stun gun still in her fist; she pointed it at me like a finger. The two guards stirred beside her, the expression coming back into their blank, stunned faces. “He’s involved! You’re a fool if you can’t feel it. And you let Cortelyou die without probing him, when you could have learned everything, the truth!”
Rubiy turned back to her—angry, but not making a move to stop her. “You’re right,” he said, and lifted his hands. “Of course. As ever, my teacher and my guide. But we can still learn the truth … we still have Cat. We’ll let him prove whether you’re wrong about him. You have nothing to hide, do you, Cat?” he said, turning back to me.
“No,” I whispered.
“Then open your mind to me.” He’d been waiting for this; I saw the hunger for it come into his eyes.
I shut my own eyes, focusing inward. For a minute I thought I wouldn’t be able to unweave the bruised and battered wall of my defenses, because I hated what was going to happen so much. But if I refused him, I’d die just like Dere, and all for nothing.… I forced myself to let go, felt the fabric of my mind begin to loosen and separate; making filaments of thought into gateways, dropping my guard strand by strand and welcoming him in.
Cold maggot-fingers of thought crawled into my mind, heavy and clumsy; he didn’t bother to be gentle about it. Probing further and deeper into every twist and secret place, he pulled out all the things it wasn’t his right to see, helping himself like he owned me, like I was nobody, not even human—the way they’d done at the Institute, the way even the Hydrans had done. And I had to let him use me … hating him, worse than I’d hated all the others; hating myself, and my stinking half-breed blood, the reason why they all did it to me.
And somehow I still had to make myself believe the lies snarled up in the strands of my own thoughts, lose him somewhere in the tangle of half-truths woven to cover the real truth. I turned him away again and again, until he was dizzy and dazzled, until I felt him begin to withdraw.…
But he still wondered. And so he tried once more, with a sudden hard blow that hit me like a fist. Old fears rose to help him, and for a piece out of forever I couldn’t hold onto my control. The lies slid and smeared into everything else, and I didn’t know if I even.… And then he came up against the locked door of the secret room in the deepest pit of my soul, and heard something behind it, screaming. He tried to force the block, but he couldn’t. I wouldn’t let him, not even to save my life. And finally, after a time that seemed like forever, he backed off. I knew then that he’d finished with me at last. He let me go, he thought he knew my limit, he’d taken everything there was to get, he was satisfied … he was still the best.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs, my hands locked over the railing; realizing that my mind was really my own again, and it was over. It was over … I’d beaten Rubiy. And he was the best.
“He’s innocent. He knew nothing about Cortelyou’s real identity; none of them did.” Rubiy’s voice reached me from another world; his hand smoothed my hair back from my sweating face. “They are exactly what they seem to be. Are you satisfied?”
And Galiess: “If you are.…” The stun gun trembled in her hand.
I turned and climbed the steps without waiting for a dismissal. I made it all the way through the silent, empty store and out to the street before I got sick to my stomach.
FOURTEEN
IT WAS POURING rain outside. The noise it made on the roof of the covered walkway was like the end of the world. I could barely even hear the bunch of mine workers laugh at me as they staggered past. “Wha’sh the matter, sonny, can’t hold your—”
“Have a little hair of the—”
“Didn’t I see you somepla—?”
I pushed away from the building and the drunken questions and stumbled out into the street. The sleeting rain drenched me and froze me as I walked, until my body was as numb as my mind. I didn’t know where I was going to until the door slid open and I was looking at Jule.
“Cat?” She blinked at me like her mind was light-years away. “Where were you? What…” I didn’t say anything. She stood aside to let me in.
Siebeling was there, sitting on the couch in the one large room that was her apartment. He stood up when he saw me. For once, I didn’t mind seeing him—it was right that he should be here. We all shared this together. “Dere is dead.”
(Dead, dead? Dead?…) It echoed from my mind into theirs and back again.
(I knew, I knew something—) Jule’s face twisted. “Oh, God!”
Siebeling sat down again, as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up. “How do you know?” Even his voice was weak.
“I was there.” My own voice shook; I hardly knew it for mine. Jule’s eyes came back to my face. “Rubiy … he just … stopped it, Dere’s heart. Just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like … that.”
Jule took my arm and led me to a chair at her table. I stood staring at it until she made me sit down. She brought shawls and sweaters and wrapped me in them, before she sat down across from me. “Why, Cat? What happened at the spaceport? You felt it too, I saw you come in, and you knew. But then Rubiy took you away.”
I nodded, pressing my hands together on the tabletop to stop them from trembling. The old fight scars on my knuckles stood out white and silver against my skin. “He made me watch. Dere—Dere tried to warn the ship that was in port … only, they turned him over to Rubiy! Rubiy knew—he knew all along what Dere was.…”
“He knew?” (He knew?) Words and thoughts jumbled. (Us, he knows about us—?)
(No!) I projected it without trying to. “Dere was a Corpse! That’s what he knew—and that’s all he knows!” I didn’t have enough control left to keep their half-shaped questions out, so I took hold of their minds and made them understand: how Rubi
y had used Cortelyou, always knowing that in the end he’d have to kill him. How he’d trapped Cortelyou in a betrayal to test my loyalty. How Dere had made Rubiy angry enough to kill him without probing him, because he knew that if Rubiy did he’d learn the truth about us all.…
Their relief and understanding filled me; but then the feelings changed again, to horror and guilt, as the real understanding hit. Words came out of their mouths, sounds of grief that didn’t even register when the real grief was drowning my mind.
“… and he just let you walk away from it?” Siebeling’s voice broke through as his mind started to focus again. “He didn’t even question your story, or ours?”
“Yeah, he questioned me.” I looked up again at him, and touched my head. “He probed me, to get the truth.” I pressed my hands together again; my bond tag rattled on the wet tabletop.
“After he made you watch a man die?” Jule’s hand crossed the table between us and closed over mine.
I nodded, not trusting my voice for a minute. “But—but—I tricked him, Jule. I still kept him away from us. I couldn’t let him win, after … after Dere…” My mind was still searching, still finding nothing. “But I had to be open to him, I had to let him have anything he wanted, so he wouldn’t suspect. And I hate it, when they do that, I hate it. God! It’s like … like being…” I bit my lip, shaking my head. And the human part of me wondered how the Hydrans could show their entire lives to everyone, to a bunch of strangers.
“They don’t share their lives with everyone,” she murmured. “They never join with humans, with strangers. Only with each other. And the important thing is that their privacy is given, not taken. That’s the difference between a joining and a—a violation.” Her head filled with pasts; she broke away from my mind, let go of my hands. One of her hands rose to her mouth, she started to bite a nail.
I caught her hand and pulled it down. I touched her mind; the shared feeling grew, warm, bright, and strong between us again. I realized then that it wasn’t the Gift I hated, any more than I could blame fire because someone had used it to burn me. And I knew that if I was given a choice right now, I wouldn’t change what I was. “I guess it is,” I whispered. “And I beat him. That’s the important thing.” I beat Rubiy.
“You expect us to believe that?” Siebeling said suddenly. His mind drove between us. “Rubiy probed you and he didn’t learn anything? He set Dere up and used his murder just to test you? Why you? Why not all of us?”
“Because—because I’m his key. Because Dere was my friend. Because—” Because he wants me. “How the hell do I know!” My fist came down on the table.
“It’s a lot easier for me to believe that you set Cortelyou up. Jule told me you were asking about ships—for Cortelyou, you said. That you went out of the spaceport with Galiess afterward.” His thoughts were turning on me, to keep from turning on themselves.
“Dere was afraid Rubiy would learn what he really was, and find out about us all. He needed a way to get a message out fast. I found one for him.”
“And got him killed.”
“Yes!” I pushed up out of my seat. “But not because I was tryin’ to!” I said, still knowing it was my fault, my fault … touching the hole in my mind that someone had filled who’d been more of a friend to me than a whole city had back in Ardattee. I sat down again and put my head in my hands.
“You can’t even hide your guilt,” Siebeling murmured, disgusted. “Why just Cortelyou? Because he was Corporate Security? Why didn’t you betray us all?… Or maybe you have already, and we just don’t know it.” His hand closed on my arm, hurting me.
“You fucking bastard—” I moved in my chair, jerking free, my hands turning into fists.
But Jule was between us suddenly, holding me in my seat. (No, Cat, no, no.…) “Stop it, Ardan!” Her mind was a shield protecting me, absorbing Siebeling’s anger and turning it aside. “Not again, not this time. He’s telling the truth.”
He’s telling the truth. Rubiy’s words echoed hers in my memory, making my stomach twist.
“He claims he could convince Rubiy that black is white. He could be doing the same to us.”
For just a second I felt her mind waver and search. “No. The wound is too deep. I know him. He couldn’t lie that deeply to me. You’re wrong, Ardan.” Her voice faltered. She lifted her head as if she was afraid of a blow; but it passed. “He came here for help, he’s been through something terrible. If you can’t believe him, then believe me, at least. You have to believe someone.”
Siebeling stood up. A wave of blind hatred washed over him, and I couldn’t tell who he hated more, me or himself.… “I don’t need anyone to tell me the truth! That we’re caught in a trap because I got us into this.… That because of him we have no hope of getting out of it again! He betrayed Cortelyou. He’ll help Rubiy take over the mines and blackmail the Federation—his only loyalty is to himself. If you expect anything better of him, if you trust him, then you’re committing suicide. But that doesn’t matter anyway, because when he’s ready he’ll betray me—and you, too.” He started toward the door. Jule’s fingers dug into my shoulders until I winced, but she didn’t answer him.
He stopped at the door and turned to look at us again. He glanced from her to me and back at her again; something happened between them for a long minute that they closed me out of. But his face didn’t change. “I don’t need that. I don’t need anyone.” He went out the door and he didn’t come back.
Jule’s hands let me go, I heard her move away from me. I slumped in my chair, fumbling in my pockets for the pack of camphs. I found it, stared at it for a minute, thinking about Dere. And then I crumpled the whole pack and threw it at the door. “Shit!” I stood up. “I didn’t mean for it to happen! Dere was my friend. I only wanted to help him. Why don’t he believe that! Why can’t he—” I stopped, as I saw her face. She was standing very still, and I thought no one should have to feel what I saw then in her eyes. She was trying to keep control, (but her emotions were too strong for her, they’d always been too strong, and now.…) A rush of agony poured out of her mind.
I took a deep breath, clenching my hands:
what’s wrong?
(Jule …
you want me out of here?)
are you all right?
She looked at me with panic in her eyes, and a tear slipped out and down. “Damn it, Cat!” Then all the tears broke free and she was sobbing, (Don’t do that!)
I hung onto my chair. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s—not your fault. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.…” Her hand rose to cover her mouth. “How could I be so blind!”
Siebeling. Siebeling had made this happen. “Jule, he didn’t mean it.”
“You know … what he said. And you know it was the truth. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t even want me, he doesn’t care.”
“He couldn’t have meant it like that. He knows you…” I fell over the words, feeling helpless, feeling like a fool. “Better than anybody.” Except me.
“It is true. He’s felt that way … ever since he lost his wife and son. I thought this was different, that I was. But I was wrong again!” She bit her lips, wiping at her eyes.
I went to her and put my arms around her. She held onto me, sagging against my shoulder, sobbing again. Her grief filled my mind and became my own; until just for a second I wanted to break away. But I knew that everything had already gone far beyond that, and at least I had to give her something to hold onto.
And she said, so softly I barely heard it, “I hate everything.” I held her closer, feeling her warmth, and kissed the shining midnight of her hair. “No, Jule, no.… Everything’s gonna be all right.” My throat was so tight that I could barely get the words out. My mind accepted her need, the way her mind had always accepted mine: asking no questions, only trying to show her that she wasn’t alone, she’d never have to be alone.…
And after a while the sobbing died away. I swallowed hard and said, “Jule … I nev
er learned a poem in Oldcity that you’d want to hear. How about a joke?”
Jule pulled back to look at me as if I’d lost my mind, and I grinned.
“What would a five-hundred-kilo talking rat say?”
She shook her head. “I—I don’t know.”
Dropping my voice about an octave, I said, “‘Here, kitty, kitty…’”
She said, “Oh…” She started to giggle, and then she started to laugh. For a minute we stood there like a couple of idiots, laughing, and the tears were still running down her cheeks. And then I wasn’t sure I had the right to, but I said, “Do you want to talk about it?” She stiffened against me, against answering; but then she nodded. We sat down again at the table. I watched her with her face in her hands and her dark hair slipping down. For the first time I noticed the wildflowers she’d brought in to make the room her own, wilting now between us in a bowl. They smelled like spring.
She didn’t say anything for a while. She almost seemed afraid to look at me. “It’s stupid … how hard it is to talk about yourself … it’s such a stupid story.” But she opened her mind at last, and began to show it to me.
I entered the memories as she let them rise; memories of a little girl whose mind always made her feel too much when she looked at everyone; who had to share every emotion, and couldn’t even keep her own to herself.… Memories of growing up in a shining, empty world where objects had more meaning than human lives, with people you knew didn’t care about you, or even each other, anymore.… Knowing that your very existence was a humiliation to them, another blow driving them farther apart. Memories of finally leaving them and your whole life behind, because you couldn’t live with your own emotions and their lack of them anymore. Moving on and on, trying to escape what there was no escape from—living everyone else’s hurts and hatreds and lacks, because you couldn’t help it. Caring about their pain, because you couldn’t help it; being used and hurt, again and again, because you cared too much. And all she wanted was peace, and someone she didn’t have to be wrong about.