Dreamer (7 page)

“What the hell did you do?” the jobber panted.

I shrugged. Then I noticed the voices had faded completely.

“Can you do it again?” she said.

The words popped out before I even thought. “For the right money.”

She gave me another hundred
kesh,
and I did it again. It was easy, and I didn’t even have to touch her much. So much for getting out of there.

After that, the jobber went into the bathroom. I pulled my clothes on and looked around. She had four closets and her dresser was the size of freight truck. It occurred to me that I could probably hoik something worth a lot more than a couple hundred. And if the jobber walked in, I could just freeze her in place until I was done and she’d never know the difference. I even reached for her dresser. Then I stopped.

Okay, fine—I’m a rent boy. Hooker. Prick for hire. But I’m not a thief. One thing you don’t do back in the neighborhood is steal, and I wasn’t going to do it here, either.

The jobber came back in kind of a hurry, as if she’d remembered she’d left a potential thief in her bedroom. So fuck her. Less than an hour later, I was back at the market with two hundred
kesh
in my pocket. I felt pretty good. I was smooth, in control. People would give me money for easy work.

I got home a little while ago. Mom isn’t here, of course, and I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t have a regular job. Like I said, the neighborhood takes up a collection to pay our bills and rent in return for all the organizing she does. Mom’s really the queen around here. No crime, no drugs, no wife-beating, and you keep a clean house or you’re out. Mom can’t legally make anyone move, but the Unity doesn’t give a shit what we peons do to each other, and when two dozen people show up to haul your furniture out to the street, you can’t do squat.

Mom’s good at banding people together. Something in her voice forces you to listen to her. Besides, everyone likes living in a place where you don’t have to worry about jay-heads breaking in looking for stuff to steal and where there aren’t any gangs cruising the streets. Who’s going to win, a bunch of addicts hyped up like hummer fish or group of organized, motivated patrollers?

So we’re all poor but honest folk around here. Mom got people to grow vegetables on roofs and in window boxes for sale down at the market for community money to pay for doctor visits and stuff. Some people raise small animals—chickens and rabbits and pigfish—and we sell them, too. Everyone contributes around here. If you don’t, the furniture committee shows up.

Anyway. I tried to take a nap when I got home. My room is tiny, with a bare wood floor and a lumpy bed that creaks. There’s a little dresser and an even littler closet. Good thing I don’t have very many clothes. I thought about the jobber, who was probably sitting in her big blue room sipping a drink brought in by her maid, and my room seemed even smaller.

I got out my flute and played for a while. Sad songs. I don’t know what it is. When you’re depressed, you want depressing music. You should want happy music to make you feel happy. When you’re depressed, though, happy music makes you want to puke.

I want off this rockball. Only one way to do that, isn’t there?

Mom’s coming. Signing off.

CHAPTER SIX

PLANET RUST, CITY IJHAN, PATROL GUARD STATION #4972

Stone walls might a pris’ner make,

But psyche binds the slave.

—Travil Garr,
Poems from a Merchant

The door fell shut with a crash. Ara glanced around to take in her surroundings—tiny room, two chairs bolted to the floor on either side of a table, and probably no end of hidden surveillance devices. A sign read
The Unity Punishes Only the Deserving.
Kendi sat in one of the chairs, head in his hands. Ara sat down across from him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Get me out of here,” he whispered hoarsely.

Ara nodded. “I’ve arranged to pay the fines. It won’t be long.” She reached across the table and grasped one of his hands. Kendi’s skin looked like it was coated with ashes. His eyes were bloodshot, a half-healed cut slashed one forearm, and the hand that Ara wasn’t holding shook slightly. He squeezed her hand with a thin smile before looking down at the table again. Outrage filled Ara’s heart at his condition of her student.

The last two weeks had been filled with anxiety. When Kendi had failed to check in, Ara had waited twelve tense hours before initiating a search. Trish and Pitr tried scouring the Dream for his presence on Rust, but an active search through the Dream for Kendi’s real-world mind and body ran the risk of alerting Unity Silent to their presence—a bad idea for a group of undercover monks trying to snatch up a Unity citizen—and the need for stealth hindered their movements. In the end, Ben and his hacking skills had met with success. Even so, it had taken ten days to locate Kendi in jail and six more to negotiate the Unity’s bureaucracy and arrange to pay Kendi’s fines. Chin Fen and the connections he had made over the years had been a great help, Ara had to admit, and she had lied her way through several lunches with him. Now Kendi sat before her, bruised and beaten. His hand was cold in hers.

They sat like that for a long time, wordless, teacher and student, until the door finally ground upward.

“Let’s go,” boomed the guard.

Kendi got up and shuffled toward the door, head down. Ara followed, gritting her teeth and trying not to glare at the guard.

Don’t get anyone angry,
she told herself.
You’re getting what you want. That’s all that counts.

They made their way through the chilly prison.  The corridor was windowless and only dimly lit by heavily-shielded bulbs in the ceiling. Ara kept her eyes resolutely ahead. She refused to glance at the tiny cells crammed with people or acknowledge the heavy smell of poor sanitation of men, women, and children all thrown in together. There was nothing she could do for these people. There was no point in looking at them. But she couldn’t block out the heart-rending sounds they made, the pleading cries that filtered between the bars.

Another door lead them out of the prison area and into the office area, a huge open place filled with regimented rows of gray metal desks. A constant rumble of voices, clattering keys, and metallic-voiced computers pervaded the background, and the air smelled of disinfectant and body odor.

At one of the desks, Ara thumbed more paperwork and listened grimly as an official informed them that as a convicted criminal, Kendi would be assigned a spot on a work detail list for the Unity as part of his sentence. Two hundred
kesh
ensured that Kendi’s name would be mysteriously absent from the work list.

At last they reached the main desk. Four receptionists directed traffic, and on a long row of benches sat various people in emotional states ranging from agitation to apathy. Ara’s jaw was sore from grinding her teeth and biting back harsh words. A familiar figure waited on one of the benches for them, and Kendi’s bruised face brightened immediately.

“Ben!” he said, and Ara laid a hand on his arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “We aren’t out of this until we’ve cleared the building.”

Kendi checked himself, but Ara didn’t miss the look he shot at Ben, as if the young man were a rescue pod in hard vacuum. Part of Ara bristled. Although Ben had tracked Kendi down on the nets, Ara had arranged for his release, and now Kendi was all but ignoring her.

On the other hand, I don’t feel about Ben the same way Kendi does,
she thought wryly.
I wonder if Kendi knows how transparent he is?

Ben gave Kendi a small smile and patted his shoulder as the three of them exited the patrol station.

Outside, hazy clouds covered the sun, but the air, as usual, was mild. The sidewalk was crowded. A pair of slaves washed windows near a pile of broken concrete. Another group of slaves dug into the exposed earth beneath the cement. They did not, Ara noticed, have power tools, and their clothes were ragged and filthy. An overseer in a red uniform watched them, energy whip in hand.

The little group trotted quickly up the street. After they turned a corner, Ara ran a small scanner over all three of them.

“No bugs,” she said. “We can talk.”

“Thank all life!” Kendi burst out, ignoring the odd stares he gathered from passers-by.

“Are you hungry?” Ben asked.

“Starving.”

Ara looked at him, and then, with a glance at the crowded street, drew him into an empty doorway. “You’re looking awfully cheerful for someone who was so depressed a minute ago.”

“That was an act,” Kendi replied. “Mostly. In order to keep other...people off my back, I acted crazy. Manic-depressive. Most of the people in there are afraid of lunatics. You showed up during my depressive phase.”

“And now you’re manic?” Ben commented dryly.

Ara shook her head, still worried. Despite his explanation, she didn’t like Kendi’s cheerfulness. It was too sudden, even for him. Kendi was a child of open spaces, someone who coped with extended voyages by spending long hours in the Dream. A fortnight in a Unity prison must have been a nightmare of the worst kind.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” she said. “And you can tell us what happened.”

“I found him,” Kendi said.

“Who?” Ara asked.

“The kid. The one we’re looking for. I found him.”

Ara caught her breath. “How? Where is he? What’s he—”

“Mother,” Ben interrupted firmly. “You just said that Kendi needs to eat. I agree.”

Ara’s first impulse was still to ignore Ben and ask Kendi more questions. A glance at Kendi’s ashen face, however, destroyed that idea.

“You’re right,” she said. “I got carried away. Food first, questions later.”

“Back at the ship?” Ben asked.

Ara nodded. “Safest place to talk.”

An hour later, Kendi, newly showered and in clean clothes, sat on his bed. Harenn sat next to him, methodically probing his wounds with fingers and medical scanner. Ara occupied the room’s only chair and watched intently. Kendi winced under Harenn’s ministrations but didn’t cry out.

“You’re barbaric,” he growled.

“The Australian aboriginal tribes,” Harenn said, “are reputed to have a superhuman ability to withstand pain. I assumed this is why you refused painkillers. You do not have this ability?”

“That was before the whites tainted us,” Kendi said. His voice was still too cheerful for Ara’s taste.

Harenn ignored him. “Your concussion has healed, as have the bruises and the cut. You have cracked no ribs. There is really nothing for me to do except give you pain medication, and you do not wish this.”

“What about the boy?” Ara said from her chair. Her worries about Kendi would have to wait.

Kendi explained about the alley, the fight, and the Unity patrol. “So I was arrested,” he finished. “The kid must have taken the time to search my pockets and grab the drugs. Otherwise I would’ve been in really deep cabbage.”

“And you were not before?” Harenn muttered.

“I want to be clear on this,” Ara said. “The boy possessed you.”

Kendi nodded. “I felt that little shift you always get after someone else leaves your mind, but I hadn’t let him in. It was a possession—or something very close to it. What’s amazing is that he must have hit the patrol at the same time. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away. That’s three people all at once, and two of them weren’t Silent.”

Ara gnawed her lower lip. The situation frightened her more with every passing moment. There was someone out there who could take over the mind of an unwilling person—more than one person, in fact. There was no recorded instance of a person with such an ability in the entire history of the Dream. How many people could this boy control? Six? A dozen? An army?

If, in your opinion, this child would pose a threat to the Confederation...

“Why did he not possess the men who attacked him?” Harenn asked. Her dark eyes were half-closed above her opaque blue veil.  It made her look sleepy.

“I think he was going to,” Kendi said. “Then I showed up.”

A knock came at the door and Ben entered with a tray. Kendi’s head jerked around and Ara almost rolled her eyes. She knew about Ben and Kendi’s breakup, of course. She knew that Ben had done the breaking. But when she’d pressed for details, Ben had refused to give them. Ara gave a mental sigh. Ben was like his mother—too tight-lipped for his own good.

Ben handed Kendi the tray. Delicious smells of spiced beans and honeyed bread wafted up from the dishes. “Jack’s talking to a buyer,” he said. “So I made you lunch.” He looked around for a place to sit and, seeing none, took up a spot on the floor.

“You cooked?” Kendi said, genuinely impressed. “Wow.”

Ben shrugged. “Someone had to. I hope it’s okay.”

Kendi tried a bite and smiled. “It’s great. Though anything would be better than the slop I’ve been eating lately. Not,” he added hastily, “that this is anywhere close to that. I mean—”

“Shut up and eat, Kendi,” Ben laughed.

“Have there been other disturbances in the Dream?” Kendi asked.

“Yes,” Ara said. “Silent all over the galaxy are frightened. Gretchen also managed to strike up a conversation with two Unity Silent without letting them know who she was. They’ve felt the boy’s presence, and they suspect his power goes beyond normal Silence.”

“Hell,” Kendi muttered.

“They haven’t narrowed his location to Rust,” Ara concluded, “but they are looking.”

“How do we find this boy, then?” asked Harenn. “Before the Unity does?”

“I’ll go back to the red light district,” Kendi said, mouth full. “None of you knows what he looks like.”

Bad idea. Bad idea.
“The guard will be watching for you,” Ara warned.

“So?” Kendi countered in that maddenly cheerful tone. “My fines are paid. I’m not on a work list. They can’t do anything to me.”

“Except follow you, harrass you, and re-arrest you under trumped-up charges like they did the first time.”

“I don’t see any other way,” Kendi breezed. “In fact, I can start looking tonight. I feel fine.”

The hell you say,
Ara thought.

“Make a composite drawing on the computer,” Harenn said. “That would be simple enough. Ben could put this image into our implants and set the computer to scan for the child. Then more of us could start looking.”

“Good idea,” Ara said, shooting Harenn a grateful look.

“But—” Kendi began.

“Get to it as soon as you can.” Ara got up and moved for the door. “We can all fan out tonight. If anyone finds him, I want you to follow him. Find out where he lives. If you can get close enough, plant a tracer on him. It’ll be easier to persuade him to come with us if we know something about him. Kendi, you stay here and rest after you do the composite. That’s an order.”

“But—”

“I thought getting the child into our hands was highest priority,” Harenn interrupted. “Why aren’t we simply snatching him off the street?”

“The boy can possess the unwilling and non-Silent, Harenn,” Ara replied levelly. “How far do you think a kidnaping attempt would get?”

“Stun him,” Harenn countered. “Once he is on the ship—”

“He could possess the entire crew,” Ara finished. “Wouldn’t that be fun? He needs to come of his own free will. Let’s move out. Kendi, composite. Then rest.”

She left, all but towing Harenn behind her.

Kendi watched the door slide shut. It didn’t clang like the...other doors. Ben moved to the chair and Kendi kept a wary eye on him. After a moment he realized it was because he was afraid Ben would steal his food.

“Was it bad?” Ben asked.

Kendi looked up. “Was what bad?”

“The prison.”

“It was what you’d expect.”

“What happened in there?” Ben pressed.

“Nothing important,” Kendi replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Kendi, don’t you think you should talk about—”

“Suddenly you’re an authority on talking?” Kendi snarled. Ben flushed and Kendi felt instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’m not angry with you. Thanks for finding me.”

“I couldn’t leave you in jail.” Ben ran a hand through thick red hair. “You think the boy’s a relative, don’t you?”

Startled, Kendi swallowed a mouthful of beans and gave a shrug. “Maybe.”

“Don’t lie,” Ben admonished. “The only time I see you this excited is when you think you’re on the trail of your family. Kendi, please don’t get your hopes up. You know what the odds are, don’t you?”

“I always get my hopes up,” Kendi said, more sulkily than he’d intended. “Sometimes it’s all that keeps me going.”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt, okay?”

“Don’t get on my back, Ben,” Kendi warned.

Ben got up. “Fine. You should make that composite.” He pulled a dermospray from his pocket. “I brought this up from the smuggling compartments. I figured you’d want it. Do the composite first, though.”

He set the spray on the bed next to Kendi and left. Why had he snapped at Ben like that? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Maybe I can make it up to him,
he thought.
Send him flowers? And chocolates too, fresh from the hold.

An image of Ben surrounded by thousands of red roses and with satin boxes of chocolate piled at his feet popped into Kendi’s head. He began to laugh and found he couldn’t stop. Guffaws echoed about the spartan room. With a great deal of snickering and snuffling, he got himself under control. Kendi wiped his streaming eyes, feeling strangely tired. His ribs ached.