Her silence began to get on my nerves until I remembered that a Hydran didn’t need the useless small talk humans needed to bridge the emptiness between them. Words were an emphasis, or an afterthought—the contact was already, always, there. Knowing she didn’t need the words when I did didn’t make it easier. But she seemed to be moving toward something, not just moving for its own sake, and so I kept my words and my thoughts to myself.
We came out at last in a garden where the green of tendrils and crescent leaves was shot with veins of silver, the wind making them shimmer, fade, brighten as though reality was something always just beyond the limit of my eyes. I looked back at the Dreamweaver, seeing that she’d reached the right place at last. The right place … because there was something of this place in her, about her, something not-quite-seen.
“Your homeworld,” I said. My own voice startled me. “A piece of it. Koss Tefirah,” squinting at the plaque beneath a silver-skinned treeshrub.
She nodded. She sat down on a low bench sculptured out of stone, touching the crystal-flecked surface with copper-gold hands.
I stood a minute longer watching her, thinking about how small she looked, how fragile, cupped in the hands of stone; how much like a child or a flower or a piece of down carried on the wind. Nothing like Jule, who was tall, taller than I was, thin but with a man’s kind of lean strength.… And yet everything like Jule on the inside, lighting my darkness and making me see hope again. Sharing a strength with me that she couldn’t afford to give, but gave anyway because I needed it … even when her own need, her own fear, were more than she could live with.
I jerked out of the thought, not knowing where it had come from—from what Jule had said or from something lying deep in my own mind. The Dreamweaver looked at me, her green eyes shifting like the green on every side. I looked down into them, seeing the same healing strength that had held Jule together when the world was pulling her apart. Seeing the strength that had been my mother’s once, too, and the eyes.… And seeing those things, knowing someone like this should never have to use that kind of strength just to keep herself sane, I knew that I would do anything for her, anything at all— My knees got weak and I sat down on the bench, keeping just out of reach, hers or mine, I wasn’t sure. I looked away across the floating glade in a half-blind glance; seeing the swaying boneless treeshrubs and the flowering vines that softened the hard underside of the next tier above us. The air was sweet and musky with the scent of them, like the scent of a woman’s skin—I swallowed, wondering if it was her doing this to me, or the place, or if I’d just gone a little crazy hiding from life down in my Oldcity room. “How—how long’ve you been gone? From Koss Tefirah, I mean?” still not looking at her. Oh God, can she hear me? Stop it stop it you damn fool—
“Many years.” Her voice was suddenly small and dreary.
“And so you come here, trying to hold onto the memories.” I twisted my hands on the stone seat. “Doesn’t it make you sad?”
She turned toward me abruptly. “Yes. Yes—” turning away again. “It makes me sad. But still I come … I don’t know why.”
“Because you think someday you’ll find what you’re looking for here. What you lost.”
She stared at me, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that she was afraid.
“No. I’m not reading your mind. Just my own.” I shrugged. She didn’t speak but I knew she was asking. My hands hung onto each other in the space between my knees. “I—I miss a place, a life, a right, a—a—” hating my stupid, clumsy words, “—belonging. Me, too.”
“How long are you gone?”
“A long time. A lifetime.”
She frowned her confusion. “Where is your home?”
“I don’t know.” My hands fisted. “Here: Oldcity! I mean, I was born here. I lived my whole life here … thinking I was only human, and wondering why people kicked my ass all the time. But I went away, to the Colonies, and I met—some of our relatives. And they made me proud of what I really am—half Hydran.” I looked back at her finally, letting her see my eyes that were as green as emeralds, as grass, as her own. “But that half of my life, I lost it before I ever had a chance to learn.… And now I’ve come back to Oldcity, and I keep waiting for some kind of magic to show me the way home. Only it never happens. Because it’s not Oldcity I’m looking for, and it won’t ever give me what I want.” Every word of it was true, and I wondered why I’d never seen the truth before. “But it’s all I’ve got.”
She nodded, her face pinched, her eyes shimmering, drowning. I noticed something wrong with the eyes then—the pupils were open almost halfway, black depths pooling in the green. We were sitting in bright sunlight, and they should have been no more than slits, barely visible.
What are you on? I almost asked it … but no matter where either of us thought we belonged, we belonged to Oldcity now, and in Oldcity you didn’t ask. Instead I said, “Why? Why did you come here, why do you stay?”
“Relocation.” The smallness, the dullness, the loss came back; the single word hit me like a fist.
Relocation. One indifferent, empty word that held a world of rage and suffering and loss—the grief of a life and a whole people torn apart. Once Koss Tefirah had been her people’s world; the way Earth had been home to humans. But Earth hadn’t been enough for humanity; like roaches, like flies, they’d spread out across the galaxy to other worlds. Some of the worlds already belonged to another people, the ones the humans called Hydran; naming them for the system Beta Hydrae where first contact was made—and for an ancient Terran monster with a hundred heads.
The Hydrans were humanoid enough that they could even interbreed with humans; their only real difference was in having psi talents that made most humans deaf and blind by comparison. Some early xenobiologists even called the human race a world of defective Hydrans, psi mutes. It wasn’t a very popular idea with the rest of humanity, especially when some empire-building combine wanted to strip the resources of a Hydran world. The FTA would oblige them, one way or another, and because the Hydrans’ psionic ability had made them non-violent, getting rid of them was easy. They lost their lives, their rights, their homes … they lost everything. And they couldn’t—wouldn’t—fight back. I took a deep breath, and another, before I could say anything more. “I’m sorry.” Something stupid. “At least—at least you’re the Dreamweaver. At least you make them come to you hungry for the dreams they’ve lost themselves, and willing to pay. Even if it’ll never be enough.”
She didn’t say anything. Her fingers traced the folds of her smock over and over. Twitchy. Mindless. Not in peaceful silence, anymore. Birds were calling somewhere far below us. I noticed again that she didn’t wear a data bracelet. Without a data bracelet, you didn’t exist on this world.
“How do you get here on your own?”
“I teleport.” Her lips barely moved.
“Oh.” Pure-blooded Hydrans could do nearly any form of psionics there was a name for. Most human psions couldn’t. I couldn’t. All I’d ever been any good at was telepathy. But once I’d been good … better … the best.
“What happened to you?”
“What?” I looked up.
“Why is your mind like that? What have they done to you?”
I felt my own eyes drowning suddenly, blinked them clear. “Somebody made me see myself without illusions, once. I killed him for it.”
“Murder?” Her voice filled with thick horror.
I shook my head. “Self-defense.” I made myself go on looking at her, knowing that no true Hydran could kill another being and survive. Their own empathy destroyed them. “I’m human enough to kill. But I was Hydran enough to pay for it.” And pay, and pay … knowing I would never forget the white agony of death that had burned out my senses and left my mind a wound that would never completely heal. “Scar tissue. That’s all I have now … except when you send your dreams out to me. I’ve been trying for so long just to … thank you.” It died in whispers. “Why … how … a
ll those others and still you knew, you touched me.” I almost touched her, but only with a hand. “Why?”
“You were different, you and the woman. Not like the rest—” I heard her disgust. “I looked at you, and I felt you different from all the rest, even from her, and so alone, more alone than anyone could be.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said, lying.
“But you came back, over and over. I felt you thanking me, and calling me, and asking me things I could not answer. Until you stopped coming.”
“You heard me—” I straightened, feeling the stone grate against my back, “and I heard you. Could we be that way now—talk mind to mind, not words?” Please, please.
“No.” She shut her eyes. “You aren’t like the guests, the empty minds. You focus sharply, clearly. But then your own mind’s hand covers its mouth, and you make less than a whisper. And your mind’s hands cover its ears, even though I am shouting.… Even to talk like humans with you is easier. Forgive me.”
“It’s all right … I shouldn’t have asked.” My hope curdled, and I was glad then that it wasn’t easy for her to see my thoughts. We sat together without thoughts or words, listening to the wind speak and the leaves answer.
“You are called Cat. Why?” Change of subject.
“It’s my name.” I relaxed finally, smiled a little, settling into the seat.
“Is that all?” She bent her head; beaten-gold earrings winked at me. “Cat?”
“It’s all I need.” I shrugged.
“But it is an animal.” Curiosity and protest.
“Have you ever looked at a cat, at their eyes? They see in the dark. Their eyes are green, and the pupils are long slits. Like mine; like ours.” I laughed once. “I picked it up on the streets. It fits.”
She nodded slightly to herself. “I see. You keep your real name hidden. The humans don’t do that, because their minds are hidden already.”
“Real name?” I shook my head. “I don’t have any other. Maybe once … but not any more.” I felt an old loss cut deeper. “I’m not hiding anything.” But you are, damn it, you are. “What about you? I don’t know any of your names.”
“Ineh. Call me that.”
“Is that your real name?”
“No.” Her hands stroked the bench, never quiet.
My mouth twitched. “Oh.”
“I could not show you that name. You would have to see it in my mind’s heart.”
“Oh,” I said again. I couldn’t decide whether to get annoyed or get angry, so I didn’t. “You’re telling me that I’ll never know you that well.”
She didn’t answer.
“Why did you come to see me, anyway?”
“You stopped coming to see me.” She glanced up, her pupils wide and black. “And then I had a sending that you would help me.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. A sending … precognition. The wild-card power. Nobody who had it could control it; they could only learn to sift images when they came, try to pick the true ones out of the static. “How? How can I help?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong that should be right?”
“Nothing.” Her pupils like black pools of emptiness swallowing the sun said, liar, liar.
I laughed again, frustrated. “Is it the Dreamweaver, the Haven—do you want out of it?” I remembered what Jule had said. No answer again. “What is it, are you afraid to tell me? I owe you a debt. Let me pay it.”
“I have no right.” She looked away, searching the glade for enemies, or an escape.
“I want this. Ineh—” I caught her hand, like a handful of bones; jerked, but then it was only a hand, soft-skinned, pulling free. “Who owns the Haven? Have they got something on you, is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Stop it! Stop!” She held herself rigid like a shield.
I stopped.
“I should not have come to you. If they find out they would keep you from seeing me.” Her face fell apart. “You can’t help me, I was wrong to speak of it. Promise me that you will not ask me any more.”
“It’s drugs, isn’t it?” It had to be the answer; how else could any human hold someone like her, and make her obey?
“No.” Yes, yes, her eyes said.
“Yes.”
She wavered, losing substantiality, going—
“No, no wait! Don’t—” I reached out, caught her arm, felt it solidify into flesh again. I let her go, sitting back. “I’m sorry, I should’ve known better. We are what we are. It won’t happen again.” I kept watching her body still held like a shield, her closed face; my own face promised her.
She let herself loosen, nodding. “I cannot share with my own people, or with the humans. But you are both and neither … when I see you I will not feel so alone. Will you come in the evenings to my show?”
I moved against the bench, feeling uncomfortable. “Look, Ineh … this is hard to say, but I can’t keep coming forever. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“No?” She looked at me as though she couldn’t understand why not.
“No.” I shook my head. “Do you even know what it’s like to be poor?”
“Yes.” She looked through me. “My people were poor when I came here. But that was a long time ago.…” She said it as if it didn’t matter any more.
“And you’re not poor any more. What about the rest of them? What about your family?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where they are.”
Anger rose in me again. I swallowed it, and said, “That doesn’t seem to bother you much either.”
“No. It is a long time.…” She shifted listlessly. “Before my people came here we shared a life, we shared our minds’ hearts. But the humans took our life away, and in this place no one shares anything. There was nothing left for us. We stopped sharing. We stopped wanting to. Because what was the use? There are better ways to stop pain.”
And you know the best. I grimaced. It wasn’t hard to see where her life had gone from there; or to see the possibilities some Oldcity user had seen in her, that had put her into this trap. But I only said, “I know.”
Her eyes came back to me.
“I’ll come to the Haven when I can. But I can come here too, it’ll be better that way. Just let me know, somehow. I’ll get the time off.”
She nodded. “Come to the Haven soon. I’ll know then.”
I stood up, not needing to be told that she was leaving. “Promise me this isn’t the last time.”
(I promise.) The words whispered into my mind. And then she was gone.
* * *
When I got back to the Center, Siebeling called me into his office again. Jule came with me, and together they asked about what had happened. And suddenly I didn’t want to tell them. “We talked. About things—you know,” shrugging. “What we are, who we are. She’s lonely, she’s lost her people.”
“Where is she from?” Siebeling asked. I couldn’t know what he was thinking, but he must be thinking about his dead wife, not about Ineh. He couldn’t see her, he wouldn’t understand her kind of trouble the way I could.…
“Koss Tefirah. She was relocated here.”
His face turned down.
Jule said, “Did she tell you why she came to the Center?”
“She missed me.” Somehow even that was too personal, too much. I could imagine what I would have been getting from her mind: she couldn’t cope with this, she couldn’t understand any more than he did, maybe she was even jealous of me for doing what she couldn’t.…
“Is that all?”
“I guess it’s something,” I said, resenting it. “It’s a beginning.” I knew then that I wouldn’t say the rest, the whole truth. This was my affair, mine, and I’d handle it myself because I was the right one, the only one who could. “I’ll be seeing her again; and not just at the Haven.” Daring them to stop me. “I’m going to help her, I know it. She knows it.” Everybody know it! wishing that everyone could.
Siebeling
glanced at Jule and back at me. They didn’t say anything. The kinetic sculpture on his desk stopped dead in the air.
* * *
I met Ineh in the Gardens more than once in the next couple of weeks, and watched her at the Haven. Watching her now, knowing that drugs fed her the dreams she was feeding to the crowd, I hated the place; hated myself for still needing them, even while I was trying to stop them. But nothing else changed. When we were together she never let me any closer.
Then one afternoon at the Center Mim came up to me with a strange, glazed look on her face. “Message for you.”
“Huh?” I straightened up from the storage cabinets. Her hands were empty. “Where is it?”
She tapped her head. “In here. What are you, deaf?” The joke had teeth and it bit me hard. “Somebody’s screaming her brains out for you, trying to tell you she wants you now. Make her stop, damn it! And tell her not to use my head for a call box in the future.” She started to turn away.
“Where’s Jule?”
“Out.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Mim—”
She turned back, still frowning.
“I’m sorry.”
She grimaced. “Just find her before she puts every ’path in the building into an epileptic fit. When I say this is a pain, I’m not kidding.”
“I’m going out.” I left the uncalibrated meters lying helpless on the table and started toward the door.
“Hurry!” She threw it after me.
I left the building and headed for the cab caller. Ineh was waiting there for me. I hadn’t expected it.
“Why didn’t you come to the Center?” It came out more sharply than I’d meant it to.
She shook her head. “They don’t want me there. So I called you.”
“Next time use the phone.” I pushed the call button.