But the voice said, “I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry this happened.”
It was Joraleman. I wanted to say, “Me, too,” but I couldn’t do it.
He waited a minute, before he said, “Kielhosa called me. Your timing stinks, you know that? Why’d you have to get yourself picked up when I wasn’t here to get you a break? They could have waited for me to get back—! But why the hell did you have to antagonize the directors with that lunatic story? You weren’t telling them the truth.” It wasn’t even a question.
I tried to turn my head, tried to get out just one word: “Yes!”
“Wait.” He kneeled down. “I’ve got some pain-killer.” He pulled away my ruined shirt as carefully as he could, but it still felt like half of my back went with it. I whimpered and swore. Through the red agony in my mind I felt his own mind cringe with disgust at what he saw. “God, I’d never make it as a medic.” He sounded sick. I shut out the image of what he was seeing. A hiss of spray struck my back, in an instant of fierce freezing cold. But the cold spread and faded, the fire died … the world started to stretch out beyond the edges of pain. I looked up at him then, and said, “Thanks.” It sounded rusted-up.
“Forget it.” He glanced away. “Look, the story I got from Kielhosa sounds pretty paranoid even to me; I’ve got to admit that. What in the Holy Name made you try to tell a thing like that to the Directorate?”
I rubbed my eyes. “… Seemed like … a good idea at the time. Kielhosa—he asked them to wait for you; he tried to keep them from punishing me.”
I couldn’t keep watching his face, but I felt him half smile. “He’s a friend of mine; he owes me a couple. And he knows what I owe to you. Besides, not everyone around here thinks a beating is the answer to all questions. What’s the matter, did you expect him to hate you forever, for pulling a fast one on him over the snowtrack? He’s even starting to think it’s funny, in a way. But with what he heard today, I’d say it’s convinced him that you’re a pathological liar.”
I groaned.
“Maybe it lost in translation. Try telling it again, to me.”
I heard him sit down on the next cot. My eyes kept falling shut. “That’s all I ever wanted.… You got to believe me, Joraleman; you know what happened to the snowtrack! You said it wasn’t an accident. Didn’t you tell them? They acted like they didn’t know—”
“Yes, I told them; I told them what I could remember.…” He stopped. “After it happened, it was like trying to remember a dream—parts were clear, and parts were hazy. I still don’t remember everything. Sometimes a piece comes back.” Like he hardly believed now that it had ever been real. “But trouble with the Spooks isn’t the same thing as a terrorist plot to take over the mines.”
“Don’t you remember what happened to the snowtrack?”
“Yes! Yes, I couldn’t forget that. I put that in the report, at least.” He sighed. “They said it was simple equipment malfunction—we haven’t had a decent mechanic here for months.” He was thinking that no one even questioned it; that nobody believed anyone would threaten the supply of telhassium, or that they could get close if they tried.
“If they don’t even believe you…?” My voice started to fall apart. “What’s the use of tellin’ it and tellin’ it, if nobody ever believes it? Why should I even try? Fuck you, you lousy bastards. You deserve anything you get, and I’m damned if I care. Jule’s crazy … Why’d she have to love Siebeling…? Why did…” slipping off into the clouds on the edge of sleep.
Joraleman reached out and shook me. “Come on, I’ll listen, at least. Try to tell me the rest of it.”
“Shit!” I swore at him again, and he let me go. “Ask Kielhosa, he heard it all! There’s a group of psions in the port town, planning to take over the mines.…” Somehow I pulled my thoughts back again long enough to tell him the rest. “… And I was supposed to come back here like this, to give Rubiy a focus for teleportation. He’s planning to gas everybody so his people can walk in and take over. If I don’t make a joining, they can’t do it—but then the ones I’m with will die. I figured if I could warn you, you’d help … go to the town, clear ’em out. I told Kielhosa everything, but he didn’t really believe it, none of ’em did.”
“You can’t exactly blame them,” Joraleman said. “That story would be hard to take even if you were wearing a uniform, and not a bond tag. But Kiel said he remembered some funny things happening around you when he bought your contract. That’s why he got you a hearing with the directors. That, and because you saved my life.”
“Yeah. When they learned who I was, they were so grateful they gave me an extra beating.” Psion, mind reader, freak …
Joraleman muttered a curse, and shook his head. “Ignorance breeds fear.”
“You think you ain’t afraid of me? You think you got nothin’ to hide—?”
His mind spasmed with guilt. For a second he glared at me. And then he sighed. “That’s the problem, you see. For most people, the only one who sees into their soul is God. And most of us wish even God was a little nearsighted.”
(The land of the blind,) I thought.
“What did you say?” He blinked and shook his head again.
“Forget it.”
“If you were—are—working with those FTA agents, what are you doing wearing a bond tag at all? You didn’t plan that—?” He frowned.
“No. I … got thrown out of the group, back on Ardattee.”
“And they turned you over to Contract Labor?”
“Yeah. It’s a long story.”
“It must be. But you’re still helping them—and us?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Why?”
I turned my face away. “It’s personal.”
Joraleman didn’t say anything more for a while. Then, finally, he said, “I’ll talk to them.”
I couldn’t remember who he meant. He left then, but I hardly even noticed it. Nobody was going to help me; nobody’d listen to a bondslave freak. I’d done everything I could—but I’d failed, I’d ruined our last chance. Jule and Siebeling would be trapped, maybe they’d die, and I’d be a slave forever.… And it wasn’t fair. My hands made fists, the bond tag cut into my swollen wrist. My back felt like raw meat. I wasn’t a hero; I was nothing but a half-breed slip who could barely spell his own name. How was I supposed to be able to change anything?
Ever since the day I first laid eyes on Quarro, and saw what it could mean to live a free life, everyone I’d met had been putting their chains on me—chains of need, chains of greed, chains of blame. I moved my foot, hearing the chain around my ankle rattle, loud in the empty silence. Half a year ago I could hardly carry the weight of my own life—how the hell was I supposed to save the galaxy all alone? All alone.… I’d always been all alone.…
I slept, finally. And somewhere in the darkness of my dreams I met the one I only knew from dream to dream, who disappeared even from my memory each time I opened my eyes to the light. The one who had been as alone as I was, who knew all the bitterness of the lost; who wandered now, lost in my dreams, forever. The one whose mind had touched my own with love once, somewhere in another life; whose arms had held me safe; whose voice could whisper hope when there was none left even in her mind; who sang me to sleep with a vision of going home.… Whose ghost moved through abandoned hallways of my mind, and showed me where to find strength when I thought I didn’t have any left; who made me go on living when I wished I was dead. The one whose name I could never say, because her true name was hidden in the heart of her mind. The one whose face was always hidden, too; who would never let me remember it, no matter how I cried to see her again, no matter how much I needed her, no matter how hard I tried, how far I reached, to be held in the warm circle of her arms.…
* * *
I came awake into blackness. I blinked; grays drifted up and steadied, but I didn’t really focus. My mind was wrapped around something that the rest of me still didn’t know; it was pulling me out of sleep like it al
ways had back on the streets when there was a need: I was tense and listening. I tried to lie still until I could figure out why.
The lights were out for the night, but I knew somehow that it was close to a new day. I knew where I was, and I knew there was someone else asleep in the ward now, a couple of cots away. He coughed and moved as I lay listening. I felt my hand, numb with sleep, clenched in a fist. I felt something more, fire licking the edge of my nerves—my back, the pain-killer wearing off.… And then I remembered what I’d dreamed: inside walls of nightmare the gentle thought of her; needing to reach her, across impossible distances of time and space, impassible barriers of loss. Reaching out with all my strength that still could never be enough—
Until suddenly, somehow it was enough, and more: My mind blazed up, caught up in a tapestry of nameless colors growing brighter and brighter, filling the emptiness inside me like nothing I’d ever known. A rightness filled me, a belonging, all the answers I’d ever need, all the comfort and understanding and love.
But I couldn’t hold onto it: I felt the strands begin to separate, saw the colors fading. I didn’t have the strength; I was losing control. No—I threw all the strength I had left into it, feeding the bright fabric everything I could; because if it fell apart and left me empty now, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
But then the fabric tore, and I was lying dazed in the dark, not knowing whether it was a dream, not wanting to know; with my body and my mind still drawn as tight as wire. Waiting and listening … for what?
“Cat?”
I froze. And then I lifted my head; trying to look over my shoulder; the pain made me dizzy. Jule was standing there beside the cot in a long pale gown. Jule. I could see her face, soft against the darkness, and her black hair falling around her. I stared at her, trying not to blink back the pain-tears, because I knew when I did she’d disappear. (Don’t let me wake up. Stay. You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful.…)
She moved, came toward me—touched me. I caught hold of her wrist; solid flesh. She was real. I blinked, and felt two tears slip out and down.
(How did I get here?) She was staring down at me, but she didn’t believe what she saw. She looked past me into the darkness. (I’ve never been here!) Her eyes came back to me, I saw the panic in them. (It is real. But how, Cat? I’ve never seen this place! I shouldn’t have come out … anywhere.)
My head dropped back onto the hard mattress. I let go of her, lay just watching her. The answer came without me even having to think about it. (A joining.)
She reached out and pushed my hair back from my eyes. (You’re that strong?)
It almost wasn’t a question. I didn’t try to answer it.
She smiled a little then, kneeling down beside me. (It was like nothing I’ve ever known. So intense—enough to pull me here, to you. I thought it never happened. I felt you calling me in a dream tonight, so far away; but it wasn’t a dream and … Cat, what happened to you? Pain, and such fear.…) She shuddered, remembering. Her memory ran through me, and my hand closed hard on her wrist again.
(I tried to tell them! I tried, I told them what was happening, but they didn’t believe me. They laughed at me! They beat me, for escaping. And for being a psion.…) I swallowed hard against sickness rising. (Everything went wrong. Joraleman was gone, and they laughed … they wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t even wait. I tried everything to make them—) Jule put her fingers up, touching my face, and stopped the thoughts with her own. I felt the aching sorrow in her mind.
She leaned forward, trying to look at my back; one hand touched it, as lightly as a birdwing, and jerked away at my gasp. Then suddenly tears were running down her face. Her eyes met mine, her pupils were wide and black, open clear down to her soul. My wounds were her wounds and hers were mine; our thoughts were bound together in a second of perfect understanding. My lips found hers; we tasted the salt of blood and tears.
And in the same instant, we felt the mind that gathered like smoke in the shared space of our own: Rubiy. The fragile bond shattered like its strands were made of glass, and suddenly we were two separate people staring at each other across the dark again. Our minds were clear; Rubiy’s contact had broken with the joining-spell. But we both knew that what really mattered was his reaching our minds at all. He knew what had happened.
“We did it—what he wanted you to do,” Jule whispered, looking down. “But you found my mind, not his.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.”
“But now he knows he can do it, too.”
“Not if I don’t let him. Not if you don’t go back. Stay here, Jule—you can make them believe the truth!”
“I can’t … I can’t leave Ardan there. If I don’t go back, Rubiy will kill him; he’ll know we’re betraying him.”
“But if you do…”
“I have to! I’ll find another way!” Her voice rose. “We’ve been making plans. Ardan thinks he’s found a way to get the—”
The bondie who’d been asleep a few beds away began to cough again. He sat up, wheezing, and looked over at us. “Hey, what the hell—”
Jule stiffened and turned like a wild thing, and then she was … gone.
My hand that had been holding hers closed over nothing. The other bondie was staring back across the empty room at me. I shut my eyes, with my fingers digging into the edge of the mattress foam, and tried to look like I was sleeping.
He said, “Hey?” a couple more times in the darkness, and then he lay down again. I heard him swear and gasp for breath. I touched his mind; it was knotted with misery and despair: (God, don’t let me go crazy, please, please, not crazy too.…) And because I’d caused it, I tried to use my mind to ease his fear, to help him forget, for a while.… I felt him drift down into sleep again.
I kept my eyes shut a while longer against the emptiness in my own mind—until I found Jule calling me, from far away, and heard her promise.…
EIGHTEEN
WITH THE NEW day, the medic on duty came into the ward again. I opened my eyes to watch him check out the other bondie. The bondie coughed and mumbled, halfway into delirium. The medic gave him a dose of something. I felt him thinking there wasn’t much point to it as he moved away again. I’d always heard it wasn’t easy to get into the infirmary—as long as you could move, you could work. And by the time you couldn’t, it was probably too late. This was a small room.
“How’s the back?” The medic was standing beside me now. He didn’t bother to look at my back, and I didn’t try to look at him.
“It hurts.” I hadn’t moved for hours, afraid even to breathe too deeply.
“That’s the point.” He left me food and water; on the floor where I couldn’t reach them. As he was walking away, I went into his mind and let him feel exactly how much I hurt. I heard him yelp, and the crash as he dropped something. I smiled, just a little.
The rest of that day was the longest day of my life. I tried to concentrate on Jule, on what had happened the night before and what Rubiy would want to do about it. But a red haze of pain filled up my mind until I couldn’t focus my thoughts enough even to worry much about it.
After what seemed like forever someone came into the ward again. I heard two voices this time, arguing; one of them was Joraleman’s.
“… against the rules!” the medic shouted.
“I don’t give a damn,” Joraleman said. He sounded like he was right beside the bed. I opened my eyes and saw his legs in rust-colored uniform pants. “I’ll do it myself.”
“You can’t treat a patient!” The medic came after him.
“Then you do it. Do your duty as a healer, for God’s sake. I’ll take the responsibility.” Joraleman’s voice was heavy with disgust. He pushed something at the medic, and sat down on the next bed, waiting.
The medic’s hands came at me with a blade, but before I could jerk back, he began to cut away the rags of my shirt with it. I lay still, biting my lip. He sprayed pain-killer on my back, and then something else that covered the burns like a so
ft skin.
I took a deep breath, and another, without feeling the pain nail me to the cot. Then I moved one numb arm, slowly, stretching it out, and the other one.
“Give it a chance to set,” the medic said. “And don’t make a lot of sudden moves. Not that you’re going anywhere.” He gave the chain around my leg a tug. “That’s all I can do for him,” to Joraleman. He left the room.
“How are you feeling?” Joraleman asked me.
“Better’n I was five minutes ago.” I tried to grin.
He smiled, but it was weak. “I can do this much for you, Cat.” His big hands twisted together in the space between his knees. “But that’s all I can do. I tried to get a hearing today, but…” His hands spread in a shrug. “Nothing.”
I nodded, not even surprised. “What did they say?”
“That I’ve gone soft.” He laughed once, his eyes shut against seeing my back.
“What’re you doin’ out here, anyway, Joraleman?”
He opened his eyes. “My job. I’m just another bureaucrat, putting in my time until transfer. The hardship pay is excellent, if I finish my tour. And my time’s almost up.” He sighed. “It’s not like this everywhere.”
“Yeah, sure.” I looked at my wrist, at the bond tag. “How much do I owe on my contract now?”
He read a number off my tag, and did something with the computer remote on his belt. “Still five thousand credits. Until your term of indenture is up.”
“Five thousand … still?” I whispered. “Jeezu. I never been worth more’n fifty in my whole life.”
He didn’t say anything. The bondie in the other bed started to cough.
I pulled myself to the edge of the cot and reached down for the water and food. My hands were swollen and clumsy; he helped me feed myself. Then he got up again. “I’ve got to get back to work. But I’ll try again tomorrow. If I can get in to see Tanake, he might be more willing to listen.…”