He didn’t say anything, either; as if there was nothing he could say, to her.
And I still wanted to hate him, but somehow I couldn’t.
Because I’d seen into his mind-but more than that, because I understood what I saw.
I wasn’t the same burned-out shadow walker who’d been dumped in his office the day I met Jule, any more than I was still the psionic deaf-mute I’d been when I met the Hydrans. I’d changed. More than just my Gift had come back to life inside me; and like it or not, I couldn’t twist the knife in his wounds, any more than I could stop loving
Jule. . . .
I let all my angry words out in a sigh between my teeth. “She’ll know, Doc. She always knows. But go and tell her anyhow.” I started for the door.
“Cat, wait-
“ he
called after me.
“Go to hell.” I opened the door and went out.
I went back out into the nameless street again, moving like a shadow walker, not wanting anybody’s mind or even their eyes to touch me.
Moving because I couldn’t rest-not alone with my memory in my dead, empty room.
The rain had ended and the sky was clearing; quicksilver puddles shimmered everywhere. The street stopped beyond the spaceport but I went on up into the hills, the only place I’d ever felt free for even an afternoon; the last place that I’d seen Dere smile.
I went farther than I ever had. The light of the sky was enough to let my eyes find a way. I only stopped when even the memories had to let my body rest; dropping down on the hillside in the spongy grass. The sighing of the trees and the hiss of venting steam was all around me, with the faint rustling music of tiny wild things in the darkness. No human sound, no human eyes, no human mind to ruin the perfect peace.
A cool wind moved through my hair. I looked up for the first time, and I thought that if the days were beautiful, there wasn’t even a word for this. The Crab Nebula lay across the clearing sky like golden fishnet, in a black sea rippling with aurora. I lay looking up at it for a long time, opening all my senses, letting my mind escape into the universal darkness. Wanting to stay there forever and let the beauty of it fill me. . . .
A tendril of alien thought curled into the pattern of my own. My mind tumbled in blind panic, trying to protect itself-until I heard the voice that wasn’t a single voice but a choir of thought calling me. Not human . . . Hydran. I stood up, searching the darkness, and suddenly they were all around me, maybe a dozen of them, as silently as ghosts.
(What . . . what are you doing here?) I looked from face to face, knowing that their eyes saw me just as clearly in the darkness, and that their minds could see clear through me. A couple of them were albino-white, but I wasn’t really sure if any of them were the ones I’d seen before. It was hard to focus on their faces when my mind’s eye couldn’t even separate them.
They asked me, (Why I was surprised to find them here, when this was their place, created by their ancestors? Their ancestors were not born to live in the dark heart of this world. They longed for the sky and the world of living things as much as the outsiders who had stolen those things away from them.)
I looked down.
They showed me that they came here often, in secret, (to gather what they needed to feed and clothe their bodies . . . and to feed their spirit.)
I nodded, and let my mind loosen again, reaching out to become a part of their whole. But I kept control this
time,
I didn’t lose myself as I sank into the image.
I joined with them, needing to share in the filling of their spirit, needing it more than I could know.
But as I joined, I couldn’t stop the memories of tonight that welled up like blood from a wound. The memories bled into the sea of their shared mind, and yet they didn’t break away. Deep waters swallowed my grief, purified it, held it suspended as they shared their strength with me.
But I felt their stunned surprise, the deeper fear beneath it, as they absorbed the truth about the human psions who had promised them deliverance. . . . (Murder-the human psions had murdered one of their own and forced the Chosen)-
me
, they meant me-(to be a witness. They were psions, how could they do such a terrible thing and survive?)
(They’re human,) I thought. (They’re good at surviving.)
And they were asking themselves, (How could they not have seen-?) But sharing their question, I saw that there was no way they could have known-because even though they were the best telepaths I’d ever met, their own minds were so open, so freely shared, that they had no defenses; they didn’t even know what a lie was. Without the lie itself, they had no way of telling a lie from the truth. Rubiy must have known that and used it against them, used them like he used everyone else.
But then they were asking me for an answer, (Because there was a strangeness that was more than alien in some of the human minds. . . . There was
an unrightness
, perhaps a)-the image blurred until it was almost lost-(deceit.) They could learn. They weren’t the fools Rubiy figured they were, after all, and I was glad.
But now I had to try to make them understand the truth behind the lies, the way they’d been betrayed, the hope they’d lost- (This is hard . . . but you’re right. They weren’t telling you the truth, they’re-deceiving you. We call it ‘lying.’ Humans do it all the time, because most of them can’t read minds. . . .) And I told them, not hiding what I felt about Rubiy, or how good it felt to show them the truth. (. . . So they lied to you, to keep you out of their way while they took over the mines. They tangled up their thoughts with a false image because you couldn’t understand the difference-they thought you couldn’t, anyway. Does that make any kind of sense to you?) I let them sink deeper into my mind, as they tried to get hold of something that kept slipping away, and then the word/feeling came back.
(They understood, now. . . . But it was not clear why these new outsiders wanted the unholy place, if it was not because they came to fulfill the promise.)
(Well, they want power, I suppose.) I tried to show them what the blue crystals meant to humans. (So controlling the mines means they’d have the FTA-the ones who control the Human Federation-by the throat.)
It was like dropping a stone into water and getting no ripples: (Not clear . . . there was no need . . . no purpose. . . .)
As if they didn’t have any idea why anyone would even want power.
I tried to remember what I knew about power to let them see why. And I guess they did, because I felt something sharp and sudden form then that hurt my head. I didn’t know exactly what I’d been thinking of, myself, until the thought came, (It was the suffering of those weaker than themselves that they wanted.) I caught images they must have picked up from my own mind, about the mines, and the Labor Crows . . . and Oldcity.
(Yeah, I guess that’s about right. But power can be used for good-) Except that right then I couldn’t think of an example.
A feeling that was almost disbelief patterned in my head; they were whispering, (What ugly, twisted mind-paths these aliens had chosen.) And I remembered what Dere had said, about humans being defective Hydrans.
I felt their hope curdling. (They understood at last that these human psions had used their gift falsely, only meaning to do further harm. But if they succeeded, what would become of the outsiders who held the unholy place?)
The question surprised me. (I don’t know.) I figured Rubiy would have to keep the ones who ran the mines alive to get what he wanted. But then I thought about the bondies-nobody would help them, whoever won.
(They saw that there was no good that would come out of this, for anyone.)
I looked up at the ring of dim faces again, seeing that there was nothing left for them now; the thing that gave them life and meaning was being destroyed because of something they didn’t even understand. There was no way they could stop it, now. Their last hope of someone to save them, of a new beginning, was gone. And I was sorry I had to be the one who’d told them; I was sorry for everything.
(But they knew it was better to know the truth, good to know that in some ways at least they had been wise. . . .) The circle of their thoughts drew closer around me. Even if I wasn’t the answer they’d been promised by their ancestors, I was still the one who had shown them the truth.
I looked down at my hands, wondering like an idiot whether they wondered why I wasn’t blue anymore. And then, because there wasn’t anything to lose by trying, I tried to show them how Siebeling and Jule were working against Rubiy, trying to stop him.
They listened. And then they asked me, (Why would I help the ones who tried to save the place where I was a slave?)
My mind tried to shut them out-
(Because there was someone who mattered.)
They answered their own question, and I saw then that they already knew about Jule and the others, and everything that had happened between us.
(Yeah, someone who matters.)
For a minute I felt the old, human resentment rise against their understanding too much.
But only for a minute.
(So you see
,
we could use any help. . . .)
There was a silence inside my head. Finally they answered; but it was only to tell me, (They had to consider these things further.)
I nodded. (I don’t blame you. You don’t owe us
nothing
.) Except revenge-but I knew they couldn’t take that. I felt hopeless and empty. My legs were getting shaky; I wondered how long we’d been standing there. I realized that they were telling me there was nothing left to say or share except loss, (And that was not appropriate to this place.) Their solid reality flickered. I felt them begin to loosen the ties that bound their minds to mine, knew that they were about to disappear again, and go back into their hidden world.
(Wait! I-I need to ask one more thing.) Their presence grew strong again. (You must have seen most of what’s in my
memory, that
time you . . . I mean, I heard the mind is never supposed to forget anything, just that sometimes you forget how to find something you want. I need to know something that happened a long time ago. . . .
And under it, wanting to know about my parents, and why-?)
They knew my secret. But they wouldn’t give me an answer. (Because they also knew that among the outsiders there was a purpose to forgetting; it protected a mind that was solitary, easily broken, and slow to heal. The ways of the outsiders were mine, I had been raised into them and I would have to live with them. I had learned to forget; I would have to learn that there was a reason for forgetting. It was better to leave some things alone.)
(They would not interfere against us. Whatever we did, they would not oppose it, for my sake. But I had seen the
truth,
there was no choice either way for them. They must think longer on this.)
I nodded again, and my hands made fists. The circle of their mind began to close me out, gently. But my own mind didn’t want to let go, suddenly afraid of losing the contact that eased all pain: my lifeline, the only bond with my people. My people-
But I lost it anyway. They didn’t belong to me; they never had. I knew it as they disappeared with a sound of the wind sighing. I’d lost my true people forever; I was stuck with being human. And that was the same as being an orphan, and right then I hated it.
I went back down alone again, feeling as cold as if I’d died along with Dere. After a while I began to see the lights of town, and the mines compound out on the snowy plain. I thought about what a cheap, cruddy place the port town was, like an old scar on the green hills. Humans destroyed everything they touched. But I didn’t have anywhere else left to go, or any other choice than to play out this loser’s game of Last Chance with Rubiy. Even if nobody else helped me or even believed me, even if Siebeling still thought I was nothing but a croach and a lousy half-breed kid . . . even if Jule still loved him. I’d never had a real choice in my life; any more than I’d ever really been young.
Somebody was shaking me awake, their fingers digging into my shoulder and their irritation digging into my brain. I crawled up out of black dreamlessness, through the Oldcity memories I always woke into, through layers of time. I reached out with my mind, expecting to find Jule, or maybe Siebeling . . . finding Galiess instead. And then the memory of where I was and what had happened yesterday caught me like a prod, shocking me awake.
I raised my head. Sunlight silhouetted her, throwing her face into shadow. I lifted a hand to my eyes, but I didn’t need to see her expression. I pushed my memories into a cell and held them there, clearing my thoughts. I couldn’t think about it now, not now. . . .
“Get up,” she said, letting me go like having to touch me disgusted her. “You’ve spent long enough being useless.”
I frowned. “Get off it. What do you care if I sleep? I got nothin’ better to do.”
“You do now. Sit up and listen.”
I sat up, slowly, yawning until my jaw cracked. (I’m all ears.)
She stiffened. “Rubiy showed you what was expected of you. You’ve proved you’re strong enough-and you’ve proved your trust, to him.” Not to her. “It’s time for you to do your part.”
It took me a minute to remember that what she meant was me going back to the mines. “It’s time?
Right now?”
My fingers traced the ragged trail of an old scar along my ribs. “Ain’t this kind of sudden?”