Dreamer (23 page)

“Come on,” Kendi said. “We need to get you settled in.”

Kendi selected a walkway seemingly at random. Sejal was a bit nervous at first—the walkway was made of wide boards suspended by cables overgrown with ivy, and it swayed beneath the rhythm of the feet that traveled it. What happened if someone tripped? It’d be all too easy to slip between cable and board and plummet to a mossy death below. When he got closer to the walkway, however, he saw that the empty spaces were covered with the same near-invisible netting that had made up the fence around the airfield. Still, looking down made his head swim.

Kendi started fearlessly across the walkway. Sejal swallowed and forced himself to follow, one hand firmly on the cable. The walkway lurched and swayed beneath, the gray sky swooped above. It was wide enough for four humans to walk side-by-side, so Sejals’ hesitant pace didn’t halt traffic, though Kendi gained quite a bit of ground before noticing Sejal was no longer right behind him. He slowed and let Sejal set the pace.

“I’d forgotten how weird the walkways are if you’ve never done it before,” Kendi said. “Once you get used to them, you won’t even think about them.”

A Ched-Balaar galloped past. The walkway lurched and swayed sickeningly, and Sejal clutched the cable with white fingers until the boards settled down again. “Why don’t they make these things solid?” he asked hoarsely.

“Flexible walkways withstand the weather better.” Kendi grinned a wide grin. “You should try getting around during a big storm. The walkways are a real challenge then.”

Sejal didn’t want to think about that. Instead he worked on simple walking. After a while, he found he was able to forget the drop and walk a little more briskly if he didn’t look over the side.

As they walked, Kendi stopped several times to exchange greetings with other pedestrians, both human and alien. Kendi shook hands, exchanged hugs, and slapped palms with at least a people. Although he introduced Sejal as his student, he didn’t let anyone touch him, explaining that a Silent greeting would only add to Sejal’s vertigo. Sejal merely nodded, suddenly shy under the blur of names and faces. Back in the neighborhood, he had known everyone by sight and name. Here, he knew no one, and it was disconcerting. He felt like a balloon anchored by the thinnest of threads.

Eventually, they reached what Kendi said was the student dormitory. Sejal, engrossed in watching the boards as they went by beneath his feet, looked up and gasped.

The place was enormous, several stories high with balconies jutting out like dozens of cupped hands. Warm brown wood and clinging green ivy made the place seem friendly and home-like despite its size. Stairs, ramps, and even climbing ropes and sliding poles ran every which way. Even as Sejal watched, a teenage boy dropped from one balcony to the one below.

“They’re not supposed to do that,” Kendi said wryly. “But everyone does. Just don’t get caught, all right?”

Sejal could only nod. He wouldn’t get caught, largely because there was no way in hell he was going to do that

A great curving balcony held the main entrance of the dormitory. Kendi took Sejal inside. Sejal’s thin shoes came down on freshly-scoured wooden floors. The ceiling of the entry area was high, with bare beams and a great many windows. Two humans staffed a wide desk near the front door. Kendi introduced Sejal, and they registered his thumb- and voice prints. Kendi had apparently sent word ahead that Sejal was coming, for there was no hemming or fumbling for paperwork.

“Linens and such are already in the room,” one of the clerks said. “The computer will let you in. Its name is Baran.”

Sejal’s room was on the third floor. On the way up, they passed other students, all human. They nodded at Sejal and pressed fingertips to forehead at Kendi. When Sejal looked at Kendi in surprise, Kendi explained that it was a ritual salute from any student to any Child. Sejal would be expected to do the same except when it came to Kendi.

“Your fingers would eventually fall off if you saluted every time you saw me,” Kendi said.

They came upon a corridor faced with several doors. Kendi gestured at one, and Sejal pressed his thumb to the lock plate. The lock clicked and Sejal opened the door. The room beyond was cozily small, with the same scrubbed wood floor as the dorm lobby. A bed piled with white linens sat across from a desk which had a computer terminal set into it. An easy chair sat next to the closet. The room’s white walls had been freshly painted and a pair of French doors opened onto a wide, sweeping balcony. Beyond the balcony was the by-now standard view of heavy branches and thick foliage.

Sejal stared. He had been expecting a dark, closet-sized room with bunk beds and half a dozen roommates. He poked his head out the French doors. The balcony, it turned out, serviced several rooms, like an outdoor hallway.

“Bathroom’s up the hall,” Kendi said. “You’d think with all the billions brought in by our Dream communication work, they’d spring for individual facilities.”

“This is great,” Sejal said. “It’s a lot better than my room back on Rust.”

“We also need to take you clothes shopping,” Kendi said. “Then we’ll get you enrolled in classes.”

“I don’t have any money.” Sejal tested the bed by sitting down hard. It was springy but firm. “How do I pay for stuff?”

“The monastery gives all its students a small stipend. A lot of people get here with little or nothing, especially Silent who used to be slaves, so you also get a little bonus when you first arrive. Don’t get excited, though—you have to pay it all back when you graduate and start working for the Children.”

“It beats...other work,” Sejal said.

“That it does,” Kendi agreed. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PLANET BELLEROPHON

BLESSED AND MOST BEAUTIFUL MONASTERY OF THE CHILDREN OF IRFAN

It is impossible to please the entire world and also one’s family.

—Ched-Balaar Proverb

Benjamin Rymar flung himself back on his bed and stared at familar beams of his raw wood ceiling. The floor around him was littered with bag and baggage. He should unpack. He should check his messages and his mail. But instead he stared at the ceiling.

Outside the French doors leading to the balcony lay the talltree forest. Green leaves and strong branches cupped themselves around Ben’s tiny house, and the breeze carried the welcome fragrant scent of talltree bark. He wondered what Sejal thought of the place.

Sejal. Ben got up and strode into the living room toward the weight machine in the corner. The room was uncharacteristically tidy. Book disks were neatly shelved, the carpets were vacuumed, the furniture dust-free. The second-year student Ben had temporarily hired to keep the place up was actually responsible for the cleanliness. Now that Ben was back, he gave it a week.

Other doors lead to Ben’s study and to the kitchen. The study was crammed with computer equipment in various stages of repair, but the kitchen was mostly empty. It was a running joke with Ara that if Ben wanted to cook he had to dust the stove first.

Ben lay back on one of the benches for some presses. Although a gravity enhancement machine took up less space, Ben preferred to exercise with bulkier metal weights. He found greater satisfaction in adding another chunk of metal to the pile than in tapping a keypad. To his consternation, however, he could barely move the current stack. Ben grimaced. He should have realized. There had been no weight machine aboard the
Post Script,
and Ben gone without lifting for weeks.

He reset the machine to a lower weight and went to work. Arms, then chest, then back, then legs. Weights clanked and thumped. Sweat trickled down Ben’s face and back. He hated lifting. It was boring, it was sweaty, and sometimes it hurt. But Ben liked having a well-defined frame, and he wasn’t likely to get it sitting in front of a computer all day.

Ben let the weights thud to the floor and sat up. That was enough for the day. His arms, legs, back, and chest burned with the good feeling that always followed a satisfactory weight session. He went through a few stretches, then headed for the bathroom, peeling off sweaty clothes as he went. After weeks of enforced closeness on the
Post Script,
it was a luxury to drop his clothes wherever they fell and walk naked to the shower. The practiced annoyed Kendi, who was always—

Ben scrubbed harder with the soap and ended the shower with his customary blast of cold water. He wandered into the bedroom, leaving a damp trail on the carpet. Droplets glistened on his skin and the chilly air raised goosebumps. He rummaged through the tangle of unpacked luggage, searching for a towel.

Sejal had yanked Kendi into the Dream. All the questions Ben had been avoiding came crowding into his head. Would it work for any Silent? Would it work for non-Silent? Would it work for Ben?

Ben gave up the search and sat on the bed instead. It was a large bed, one he had bought at Kendi’s insistence back when they had been together. Ben liked to sprawl in his sleep, and he had a tendency to crowd Kendi even after—

Dammit. He was not going to think about Kendi. He was not.

A cool draft wafted through the open window and across Ben’s wet, bare skin. In response he grabbed up the bedspread and wrapped it around himself like a giant cloak. Pillows tumbled unheeded to the floor. Kendi’s logic had been flawless. If Ben’s lack of Silence was the reason Ben couldn’t stay with Kendi, then making Ben Silent was the obvious solution.

Ben shuddered within the bedspread as it clung wetly to his body. The Dream always took people away from you—Ara, Kendi, Pitr. The idea of entering it himself made him sick.

And yet...

Ben unwound himself from the bedspread, found some clothes, and pulled them on. Just as he was fastening his shoes, the doorbell chimed. Ben scrubbed at damp red hair with both hands to hurry the drying and trotted toward the front door.

“Albert, who’s here?” he said.

“Sister Gretchen Beyer,” the computer replied.

Ben stopped. What the hell was Gretchen doing here? Already he could feel his face turning hot and he hated himself for it. Gretchen could make him blush even from the other side of a wall. She reminded him of his cousin Tress—loud and bossy. Ben sighed and opened the door.

Ben’s house was high up in this particular talltree. Three stout branches as thick as a Ched-Balaar’s body formed a sort of tripod to support the floorboards. A long staircase made a tight spiral around one of the branches to the main walkway below. Gretchen stood on the little front porch, flushed and breathless from the climb. She held a small package, and a few strands of hair had escaped the blond braid that hung over her shoulder.

“You need,” she puffed, “to find a house on a lower level.”

Ben shrugged. “The climb keeps me in shape. Come on in. What’s going on?”

Gretchen entered the living room and flung herself casually down on the sofa, dropping the brown-wrapped package on one cushion. “You aren’t seeing Kendi anymore, so I though I’d make a play for you. You up for it, handsome?”

Ben’s mouth fell open and his face grew so hot, he was sure he could fry an egg on one cheek. Then he realized that Gretchen was joking. He sat on the weight bench and simply looked at her until she snorted.

“The expression on your face,” she grinned. “You need to lighten up, big boy.” She glanced at the trail of sweaty clothes, including Ben’s underwear. “Didn’t take long for this place to explode, did it?”

“Gretchen, what do you want?” Ben interrupted, face growing hotter by the moment.

“Don’t have a stroke,” she scoffed. “I’m just joking around. I brought this.” She held up the little package. “It’s the drive to my house computer. When I got back it started acting weird, and then it just went
foom.
I can’t turn anything on or off, the trash isn’t making records for the grocery store, and the toilet flushes every eight minutes on the dot. The repair shop said they can’t get to it for at least week. Can you fix it? I’ll pay you.”

He should have just told her to get the hell out. Instead, he found himself saying, “I’ll have a look. Bring into the den.”

Gretchen did so and leaned against the door frame as Ben, silently berating himself for being a doormat, cleared some space next to his main terminal. He hooked the drive to his own system, uploaded a scanning program, and skimmed the data.

“No wonder the poor thing crashed, Gretchen,” he clucked. “It’s ancient. Where did it come from? Irfan’s ship?”

“A joke!” Gretchen hooted. “My god, the man does have a sense of humor.”

Ben flushed yet again, and a spark of anger flared. “Look, if you don’t want my help—”

“No, no,” Gretchen interposed hurriedly. “Sorry. My mouth runs away with me sometimes. Can you fix it?”

Surprised at how quickly Gretchen backed down, Ben said, “I doubt it. You’d be better off buying a new one and selling this thing to a museum.”

“Another joke! You’re a real—sorry.” Gretchen waved a hand. “Look, Ben, I’m a little strapped for money right now. I can’t afford a new house drive. Can you...?”

Ben sighed. “Give me a couple hours and I’m sure I can cobble something together.”

“Yes! Ben, I adore you.”

The words slipped out of Ben’s mouth before he could stop himself. “Then why do you give me such a hard time?”

Silence. Ben found his face was still hot and he cursed himself for it.

“Because I like you,” Gretchen said. “I don’t talk this way to just anybody. I like Kendi, too.”

Ben turned toward her. “Is that another joke?”

“Nope. Cross my heart.” Gretchen drew an X over her chest, then slid casually to the floor to sit cross-legged in the doorway. “I used to have a big crush on you, you know.”

“On
me?”
Ben almost squeaked, too startled to blush this time.

“Absolutely,” Gretche nodded. “Years ago, back when we were both students. I asked—okay, begged—Trish to set us up on a date, and she died laughing. I asked what was so funny, and she told me you were already seeing Kendi. That killed that.”

Ben didn’t know how to react, so he said nothing.

“Uh oh. I’ve upset you.” Gretchen pulled her knees up under her chin. “Ben, this was, what? Six years ago? Seven? When Mother Ara selected me for her recruiting team and I found out you were on it, I was glad because I figured I’d get to know you better. You’re good, Ben, and I like working with you.”

“Oh,” Ben said, still uncertain. “I, uh, like working with you.”

“No you don’t,” Gretchen laughed. “You hate me. I’m not easy to get along with.”

Ben managed a small smile. “Well...”

“See?” Gretchen shrugged. “It all goes back to my tragic childhood, of course.”

“Where
did
you grow up, Gretchen?” He twisted sideways in his chair to rummage through a box on the floor. “You’ve never said.”

“Earth. My family was from South Africa. Old money, but not much left by the time I was born.” She shook her head. “No one would dare be Silent in
that
family. Genetic freaks, all of them.”

“The Silent or your family?” Computer parts clattered and clunked as Ben sorted through them.

Gretchen laughed. “Another joke! You’re getting better at this. The freaks were—are—the Silent. So I got to grow up in a lovely house with a lovely family who thought their lovely daughter was a freak. My brothers were total shits, especially when Mom and Dad’s backs were turned.” An expression of pain briefly crossed her face. Then she shook her head. “Anyway, I eventually signed up with the Children, so here I am in a treehouse asking a cute guy who has no interest in me whatsoever to fix my house hard drive. Who’d have thought?”

Ben came up with the partially-repaired drive he’d been looking for. Multi-colored wires dangled from the ports, and the housing was streaked with dust. To his surprise, the
cute guy
remark didn’t redden his face.

“Fate is weird,” he said solemnly. “If Mom’s doctor had moved his hand a little more to the left, I’d still be in the freezer and you’d be asking someone else to fix your computer.”

Gretchen cocked her head. “That was cryptic. Explain.”

Ben did, surprised at how easily he was telling the story to Gretchen, a woman he had thought he disliked. “So somewhere in a laboratory,” he concluded, “I’ve got eleven siblings.”

Gretchen shuddered. “Creepy. Not you,” she added hastily. “Just the idea that you could’ve easily been someone else.”

“Anyone could,” Ben said in philosophic tones. “When you think about how many million of your father’s sperm competed for one—”

“So how’s that hard drive?” Gretchen interrupted. Ben noticed
she
was blushing and laughed. He laughed hard, unable to stop. Ruefully, Gretchen joined in and all tension left the air.

“All right, all right,” she finally muttered. “Score for you.”

Gasping, Ben decided to change the subject. “How do you get along with your family now?”

“I don’t.” Gretchen stretched. “I go back to Earth every so often to rub my success as a Child in my father’s face. It was hard to give up being different when I came here, though.”

“What do you mean?”

Gretchen shrugged. “I hated being different when I was kid, so after a while, I turned it into a badge of courage. ‘Look how strong I am, everyone. I’m different. I’m special.’ But at the monastery, I’m not different or special at all.” She gave Ben an idle, heavy-lidded glance. “It was hard to give up being special, even though it made my early life hell. Really hard. Happens to a lot of people, I guess.”

Ben didn’t respond.

“Well,” Gretchen said, rising, “I’d better let you work in peace. Give me a call when the drive’s done, all right? You’re a doll.”

And she left.

Ben stared down at the drive in his hands for a long time before he picked up a soldering iron and set to work.