(Get up.)
I got up, somehow.
(Pick up the gun.)
I did.
Rubiy came over to me and caught my jaw with his hand, looking into my eyes. (Yes, I could kill you all myself—it would be simpler. But this way I’ll enjoy it so much more.) He let go of me again. (Consider the irony of the situation, Cat, while you have the time left. I find the arrangement fitting.)
(You bastard, I’m not gonna kill for you, I won’t, I … can’t.)
And he knew I couldn’t kill, because I was Hydran—he knew what it would do to me. But he knew I would kill, because I wasn’t Hydran enough—or strong enough to stop him. Because he was the best, he was stronger than any of us. But not stronger than all of us. (Jule—!) This time slipping free, finding her in the darkness of our mind prison; linking, feeling her mind flow into mine.
Her hand rose and clutched at mine. But we were barely touching fingertips through the cage bars. It was only because Rubiy chose to let it happen, because he enjoyed pulling our strings.…
(Cat!) Her voice filled my mind; she knew everything Rubiy had shown me. (Why did you come? I’m not worth it.…) And her guilt was a weakness that Rubiy used against her, like he used my own guilt, and my half-alienness. He was playing us all against ourselves, we were flies in his web, and every time we struggled we only pulled it tighter around us. (Jule, he can’t make me use this thing.) I looked at the gun, trying to make myself belive that; but knowing, too, that he knew every secret fear, and how to turn them all against me.
And then he reached out and broke our contact. Jule’s fingers slid down mine, my hand dropped … I was alone.
And Siebeling was coming. I felt Rubiy focus his mind like a part of my own, to take Siebeling over; I felt like it was my own mind being lost all over again. Now he had us all. Not wanting to, I turned to watch the door, and I waited.
I saw Siebeling come into the light. His face was like Jule’s face; the face of something trapped and helpless. His eyes went from Jule to me to Rubiy, and back to me. I had the gun pointed at him. His eyes asked the question—
(No, I don’t want to do it!) But I couldn’t reach into his mind and make him sure, any more than I could find Jule again. My hand held a gun on him, and all he knew was that he was going to die.
“Dr. Siebeling.” Rubiy nodded. “Now the circle is complete, and we can finish this.” He said it out loud; I wondered why he bothered. I felt his mind begin to push me, gently at first and then a little harder; because he had plenty of time, and he wanted to enjoy this. And it wasn’t like pain; it wasn’t anything I could fight back against, or even get hold of. It was just the understanding that if I didn’t do the thing he wanted me to do, in the end my mind would shatter into a million pieces like glass. I couldn’t do it … I couldn’t … but I couldn’t stop it. My hand began to shake, I watched while my other hand rose to steady it … he was trying to make my fingers close over the trigger … now both hands were on the gun. But Jule and Siebeling were all I could see. And they were all I had—
And I held him. My fingers froze like a part of the metal. He couldn’t make me fire.
It shook him. His control of me slipped a little: he’d taken on too much, he didn’t have any reserves left, he couldn’t control us all for long. He wasn’t a god—he was pulling a bluff too! I tore his web, found Siebeling first, (Join with me!) But Siebeling’s mind turned me back; he wouldn’t join. He thought I wanted to kill him. The words formed in my mind, his words: (You lying little bastard. I should have known better than to trust you.)
(Stop it—) My hands were slipping.
(I should have known what—no, I—what you were.) And then everything he’d always thought of me, despising me, denying me: (I should have known.)
“God damn you.…” My voice broke.
(No. Cat! I don’t!) Horror filled his face.
Rubiy pushed me and I fired.
I knew what he’d done then, I jerked my hand aside, but it was too late. The energy beam caught Siebeling and dumped him against the wall. Jule screamed with his pain, and my mind echoed with it.
And then he disappeared from my mind. Rubiy’s elation filled the emptiness. It was a trick, another trick; and Siebeling was dead. I whimpered and swayed on my feet, but Rubiy controlled my whole body, holding me there. I felt my head pull around to look at Jule. She sat with everything and nothing in her eyes and on her face.
“I’m sorry, Jule. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.…” I felt my hands swing around with the gun. She just kept on staring.
Now there were only the two of us left; Rubiy knew he could make us do anything. Now it was Jule’s turn to die. He’d made me kill once, and after I killed Jule, too, he wouldn’t even have to force me to use the gun on myself. Because I wouldn’t want to live.
I saw Jule behind my eyes, and what I was going to do to her—to Jule, for him. And I knew that there had to be something stronger than Rubiy, and stronger than hate, in what she meant to me. Finding that thing was all that mattered, she was all that mattered.… Find her, find her, nothing else is real.…
And I did find her, caught her, cried, (Jule! join with me—) I felt the blackness close in on me again, but I wove her mind into a band of light, I made her join. The power wavered and grew in me, until it felt as strong as it ever had, and suddenly even stronger, as if someone else— The gun swung back and away and back like it was caught in a magnetic field.
Rubiy’s mind struggled to tear us apart, but our minds were one, fused by need. He tried to stop our hearts, but he couldn’t reach us. He probed the pain center in my mind and ripped away the block I’d set there; my body cried out with the shock. But that didn’t matter, I didn’t really feel it; the pain was diluted, absorbed, shared.
And then his attack shifted again; he caught me from behind and his mind forced me down into hell. And hell was my own face mirrored in his eyes, my own stinking face: Cat the half breed, Cat the drug dreamer, the slip, the boytoy, Anything-for-a-credit-Cat, seeing my whole rotten, wasted life stripped of its lies. I struggled in his web, trapping myself, until there was nowhere to hide.… I relived all the ugliness that had made me what I was, every memory as sharp as hunger.… I remembered everything. Until finally he drove me back against the locked door in the deepest part of my mind—the barrier I’d built myself at the beginning of my life. Until I had nowhere else to go, nothing left but to surrender or to break—
I broke through, into the time I couldn’t remember, and memory poured into the darkness: Sleep, my little one … dream of the stars and sun … her voice, singing away my fear. I could see her face, the face that smiled only for me, at last; I could reach the mind that touched me with love. And nothing mattered but the joy I felt holding the hand that held everything.… Dream a world of your own.… How could I ever have forgotten that face?… Dream of a life, dream of a time.…
And then, answering me, Rubiy—tearing me loose from that hand … dream of my love … making me remember why, making me follow the strand to its end, the end of the song and the memory and the only happiness security peace love I’d ever known. I watched my dreams die again in an Oldcity alley splattered red with death: hearing her screams, the screams that nobody answered, the screams inside my head that only I could hear—the agony, the nightmare.… Crying and crying to get free, (But there’s no escape, Cat, only death her death your death … death.…) And Rubiy showing me how it had to end. (You are nothing. You are all alone.)
(No.) The past was dead. All my dreams had died with it. But I wasn’t alone—I was bound to a new life. I was joined more than just mind to mind—soul to soul—and I knew that I never had to be lost and alone again. Strength that was more than just my own strength shrouded me in light, warm pure light, shielding me, shaping me, forcing, forcing—I was a mirror, I shone with light. (No escape! Rubiy, there’s no escape. We’ve already won!) I felt the terror that had trapped me turn back on him, and the truth drove it home. And I broke him, heard
him cry, (No, stop, I don’t want to die—!)
But he’d shown me the truth and I wanted my revenge; my mind flashed free like a coiled spring. I couldn’t stop … I pulled the trigger. The gun jerked in my hand, a smear of blue-white light blurred my view of him—
He died. And his death was my own, in agony that exploded like a star and vaporized my soul inside shattering bonds of light.…
And it was quiet. Like the place had been full of—noise, something; but now everything was quiet. Everything. All I could hear was the air scraping down my ragged throat into my lungs, my heart still beating. Jule stumbled up from her seat and stared at me for a minute, holding her head, with tears running down her face. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but then she went to Siebeling. As she kneeled down beside him, I knew suddenly that it had been a three-way joining, not two-way. That it had been Siebeling who’d known the answer to Rubiy, and made me use it.… Siebeling was still alive. I watched her lift his head; she said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.…” But I didn’t know who she was thanking. Siebeling’s eyes were shut; he didn’t move.
I looked down at Rubiy, his body lying ruined on the floor instead of their bodies, instead of my own. The nothingness where his mind had been made me gag. I dropped his gun and wiped my hand hard on my pants. And I wondered what was the matter with me, I’d seen plenty of death, I’d seen it happen before. But never because of me, I’d never brought … death. There was too much death behind my eyes.…
I looked back at Jule and Siebeling, blinking hard, fastening my jacket because I felt so cold, as if the death had gotten into my bones. My mouth tasted like death; death stank in the air around me. Because I was Hydran, body and soul, and to kill was the unforgivable wrong; but I was human, body and soul, and I’d wanted to kill.… I pulled my hands in against my chest, against death that stood with me, death that filled the halls like a static cloud, death that was a wound inside. I felt my mind trying to get away, with nowhere to turn but in on itself. Panic rose up in me.
I saw her glance up at me. I reached for the gentle thought of her—(Help me!) But I couldn’t find her. The words fell away into the nothing hole I’d made of Rubiy with my mind and a gun: all I could see, all I could feel, all I could remember … a wound bleeding hate and terror, a wound that would never heal.
There was no aura shining around her head or Siebeling’s anymore. There was no trace of them in my mind. And suddenly I knew my thoughts wouldn’t cross the endless silence to find them, ever again. I’d never know what I could have done with my Gift. Because I’d killed myself when I killed Rubiy … I’d felt both of us die together. My psi was in ashes, it was gone, and everything it had given me was gone with it, forever. I’d never be a telepath again, I’d never be Hydran; everything was gone. I’d killed and I’d survived it, and that was my punishment: to come full circle, to be a walking dead man, blind and alone and going nowhere.… Only this time it would be worse. This time I’d know what I was missing.
I stood shivering beside Rubiy’s corpse, with my hands pressed against my chest, and started to cry.
Jule teleported to the mines to bring back help. Somewhere in the silent hours while she was gone, Siebeling called my name. I went to him, sat beside him listening to the words that slipped out of his mouth like the hot tears sliding down my face: asking me to forgive him, but I didn’t know why; telling me that he’d make it up to me, that he’d make me whole again. But the hole was in my mind and words didn’t mean anything anymore. And after a while the words stopped and the tears stopped; I sat holding him, with his head on my knees and death watching over us with empty ice-green eyes.
Jule came for us, finally, her eyes swollen and tired, a cold wind behind her like a slap in the face. I watched her kneel down beside me while the doctor looked at Siebeling; but she only saw Siebeling. There were others standing behind her; I didn’t look at them. There was talk, and maybe they were telling me to get up; I didn’t listen. I just sat staring, until somebody shoved me with a foot and I fell against her. She caught hold of me, startled. Her face look confused, she was frowning, “Cat … where are you? Cat? Oh, God.…” They tried to pull me away but she said, “Leave him alone!”
The hands let go of me, except hers. The guard said, “Bunch of freaks, they’re all crazy.” She didn’t look up, holding onto me, “Cat, oh Cat, what’s wrong—?”
I pulled at my jacket. “I can’t feel you, Jule. I can’t feel you, it’s gone.” My eyes were like sand; I thought there weren’t any tears left, but they ran stinging down my face again. There wasn’t enough room in the galaxy to hold all the pain inside me. “I’m all alone.” I started to hiccup. Somebody laughed.
But Jule wiped my face with her sleeve and held me close. “I know, I know.…” Her voice shook. She took my hand, then; I got up and followed her outside.
I sat beside her in the snowtrack, with my head on her shoulder and my hands bound together. She murmured, “It’s going to be all right,” over and over, but I couldn’t feel her at all.
* * *
“… This is insane. You can’t still want him.…”
I remember the mines, sitting quietly in a strange/familiar room while Jule stood over me, protecting me, as she argued with someone: “… of the taMings who ship your ore. My credit is very good.…” But the words didn’t mean anything anymore; I couldn’t feel them. No one hurt me, they just came and stared. They weren’t real anymore either, so it didn’t matter that a couple of them looked familiar. After a while I noticed that my hands were free. Then there was a flash at my wrist and something fell off, a red band; but my wrist still wore red. Somebody wrapped it in white. And all the while I was getting farther and farther away.…
PART THREE
Crossroads
TWENTY-TWO
I WAS HUMAN; so I survived. I’d even come home to Ardattee: the crossroads of the Federation. Gray sky and flowing towers and silvered glass—every day I sat in the dome lounge at the Sakaffe Institute, staring out over the city, and by now they knew enough not to bother me. The techs had put me back together, with Siebeling making sure they did it right this time. They’d used everything they had to bury the guilt and stop the pain, to mend my torn mind. They filled the nothingness piece by piece; they were tough and patient and they wouldn’t leave me alone.
Because Siebeling had forced me to kill Rubiy, he hadn’t had any choice. But he’d known what it would do to me, better than anyone, and I guess he wanted to make it up to me now. So the wound healed, but it left scars that no one could help. Scars that sealed me off from the past, cauterized nerve endings that turned everything that had happened to me into something happening to someone else. All the memories, all the feelings, all the gifts of a psion, that had been mine once, were behind a glass wall now—where I could see them but I couldn’t touch them.
The techs had told me there was no reason I couldn’t be a telepath again; but they were wrong. I couldn’t project anymore; I’d lost all my sense of direction, I couldn’t find anybody else’s mind. I didn’t even know where to start. And if someone tried to break through to me, my mind would shut them out, I couldn’t stop it. Even Jule. Every time we were together, she tried to reach me, but all I could see was her smile that stopped at the skin. And when I believed finally that it wasn’t ever going to change, I got up and left the room; I wouldn’t see her again, or Siebeling either. Because it wasn’t enough, after what we’d had before, and knowing that I could never have it again was more than I could stand.
She and Siebeling had gotten married as soon as he was out of the hospital. I remember how strange it had made me feel, surprised, when she told me. Not because they were actually married, but because I finally realized that I wouldn’t be with them anymore. I wondered what I’d expected: the job was done, and they were married. That wasn’t any surprise. But it mattered, more than I wanted to admit; and hurt more than I ever let her know. Because I’d loved her more than a little for a long time now
. But I’d had time to realize she didn’t love me the way she loved Siebeling … and sitting alone for hours watching the sky, I finally realized that maybe it wasn’t the same way, how I loved her, either. They’d have a lifetime together, in happiness; time to make up for all that had happened to them before.… And if they were married, the last thing they needed was me around reading their minds.
But I couldn’t read their minds, after all. I had to keep poking myself just to remember someone was in the room. And no tech was ever going to fix that, no matter how long I stayed at the Institute. I had a clean record with the Corpses and a databand to hide the scar on my wrist, and nothing else, and I guessed that now maybe it was time to go home.
I turned back to the window, leaning across the sleek, leathery coolness of the seat. I could see the towers pushing up pale and gleaming through the shadowmist of winter snow, like a picture out of a fairy tale. I remembered the endless fields of silver and the crystal forests of Cinder.
But suddenly I was remembering a part of the city you couldn’t see from here. Where there’d never been a crystal tree, or even a blanket of fresh white snow—where winter was icicle-hung sewer pipes and dirty slush in Godshouse Circle, frostbite and pneumonia.… Where the icy wind sucked in from the sea cut through your worn-out clothes like a knife, and nobody would let you sleep where it was warm. Where dreams rotted and the darkness ate its way into your soul like worms.… Oldcity. Home sweet home. Dream of a life, dream of a time.… My mother’s voice still sang about broken dreams, somewhere in my mind behind a wall of glass.… If she was really even my mother. I’d never know for sure, now. I looked down at my twisted thief’s hand; it made a fist. God, you freak.… Now you’ve really got nothing. Not even the gutter. My mouth started to tremble. I dropped in a piece of sour candy and cracked it with my teeth. I hadn’t touched a camph since I’d come back from Cinder; every time I saw one I thought of Dere. Poor Dere … lucky Dere, honored in death like he’d never have been if he’d stayed alive. All his troubles were over now. I rubbed my eyes.