Dreamfall (52 page)

But even as we went on kissing, wedding our hearts and minds
while our union was witnessed by the countless stars in the infinite night, I
knew we didn’t have a prayer.

Because I knew how the universe worked, and nobody got out
alive.

Thp nexr morninc Miya set out for Freaktown again. She held
Joby’s small, groggy form in her arrns, kissing him gently on the forehead
before she kissed me long and deep on the mouth. I wished then that I wasn’t a
half-breed, with only half-Hydran looks and half a Hydran’s psi ... wished that
I could take her place, not because I could have done it better, but only so
that I wouldn’t have to be the one who stayed behind, waiting, never knowing
....

She disappeared with a last half smile of regret, while I
stayed behind holding Joby in my arms. I felt his body stiffen uncertainly as
he suddenly lost sight and sense of her.

“Where’s Mommy?” he asked like he always did, speaking
Standard like he always did with me.

“She went to get food,” I answered like I always did. “She’ll
be back.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah, soon,” I murmured, carrying him on my hip as I
crossed the room to the window. We looked out together at the sun rising over
the reefs. “Look at that,” I said, pointing, to disttact him. “One more day.” A
taku fluttered down from above and landed on my head. “Hey!” I said, but it
didn’t move. Joby giggled, pressing his hands to his mouth.

I managed a laugh of my own, amazed that even now, staring
into the light of universal order while death and chaos hung from a thread
above us, life could still be so absurd that there was nothing left to do but
laugh about it.

“Are you my daddy?” Joby asked, his face turning somber
again.

o’Yeah,” I said, glancing away.

“I have two daddies?”

My breath caught. I nodded slowly. “That’s right,” I whispered.
“You’re a lucky boy.”

“And two mommies?”

I nodded again, not trusting myself to answer. I hadn’t let
myself think about his real parents since I’d crossed the river. The taku
launched into the ait startled by my sudden movement.

“Do they all love me?”

I swallowed. “You bet they ... we all do.”

(Why aren’t they here?)

I knew exactly which set of parents he meant this time. “I
... they can’t be.” I answered out loud, because right then I was even more
uncertain about whether I could control my thoughts. “They want to be here, but
they can’t be.”

“Why?”

“They ... have work to do for Tau.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

My mouth quirked.
Not anymore.
“My work now ... Miya’s
and mine, is making you strong and well. That’s why we’re here, at this healing
place. When everything’s better, then you’ll go back to your ... other family.”
I wished suddenly that they could be here, to see how he was now. Whether he
lived or died, they’d probably never see him this way again.

His face brightened, then turned rubbery, like his thoughts
had snagged in my fraying confidence.

“I promise,” I said, wanting it to be true so much that I even
believed it.

He nodded, relaxing in my anns. He put his head on my shoulder,
content to wait with me while the sun rose over the reefs. I looked down at the
valley below us, at the bridge that spanned it, so different from the bridge
that joined Freaktown and Riverton.

I thought about the difference in the way Hydrans and Humans
counted the value of the reefs, how much of that difference came from the way
they perceived them. To Humans a reef was nothing but a biochemical stockpile,
no more or less than the sum of its parts. The fact that this last reef, and
this healing place, had escaped being strip-mined was nothing short of a miracle.
It had only happened because Tau’s shortsightedness and xenophobia kept them
from learning anything meaningful about Hydran culture.

I thought about miracles, about what this shue had given
back to Joby, to me; how it had freed us all from our lives of solitary
confinement. I wondered how long it had been since the Hydrans of Refuge had
felt whole, connected, greater than the sum of their parts ... wondered again
what would happen if the an lin returned to the Homeland: Whether the rain they
brought with them could bring this wasteland back to life. Whether their
presence would be enough to bring the Community back to life, back to the Way.
Whether it was ever too late to start moving toward the kind of future their
past deserved ....

Joby shielded his eyes against the glare as the sun rose
higher, his stubby fingers curled into an imitation of Wauno’s field lenses. I’d
let him look through them, to search for the an lirr, sometimes when he was
bored. We never saw any, but he never seemed to mind.

“Look,” he said suddenly, and pointed into the sunrise.

“What?” I squinted a little, trying to make out anything separate
from the reef and sky. My pupils had already naffowed to slits; usually they
did a better job than Human eyes of keeping the light out as well as letting it
in.

“
There.
”
He pointed impatiently, wagging his
hand until I began to make out a half a dozen black specks like sunspots
against the dawn. They grew as I watched, expanding at a rcte that made a tumor
of dread form inside me.
Coming this wo!,
directly at us, too big and
too fast to be anything natural. There was only one other thing they could be:
CorpSec flyers. And without Miya here, there was no way to escape from them.

“See, Cat?” Joby was demanding as my higher brain functions
came back on line. “See? See?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “I see them.” I held him closer as the
ships began to take on shape and detail, not slowing their approach. Their
flashers hurt my eyes, brighter than the sun.

“Daddyl” Joby called out, waving in sudden delight. He wasn’t
looking at me. I remembered suddenly that his father was CorpSec; the Tau
Security logos were plain enough to read now on the approaching flyers. “Time
to go home?” he asked, looking at me. “Everything’s better now?”

Only it wasn’t his father coming to get him. It was Borosage’s
butchers. I stood paralyzed, waiting for the lead gunship to open fire. We’d
never even feel it, it would happen too fast—the plasma burst that blew us
apart and scattered our atoms into a billion golden dustmotes. “Y€s, time to go
...” I whispered. “Hold on tight.”

I shut my eyes, afraid to watch death approaching; opened
them again, afraid not to.

No burst of raw energy suddenly put out the sky. I went on
staring, ftozen where I stood, as the gunships stopped in midair. They ringed
the balcony where we waited, weaponless and unprotected.

“This is Corporate Security!” a voice boomed out of nowhere,
everywhere, like maybe we’d been deafened as well as blinded. “Stand where you
are. Put up your hands.”

Slowly I let Joby slide out of my arrns. Then, slowly, I put
my hands in the air.

Corpses in body affnor emerged like beetles from the closest
ship, dropping onto the balcony around us. Every weapon was trained on me. I
stood motionless, barely even breathing, afraid that any move I made would be
my last.

Joby clung to my leg as he saw the weapons and registered
the moods in the minds behind them. “Daddy—t” he called, his eyes searching one
shielded, anonymous face after another.

I tried to touch his thoughts, reassure him someho\ry. My
mind seemed to be as paralyzed as my body. I tried to find words instead—broke
off as one of the annored men still disembarking pushed forward through the
ring of troopers, dropping his weapon, lifting the face shield of his helmet.

“Joby—!” It was Burnell Natasa. I watched in disbelief as he
swung Joby up in his arms, backing away again through the ring of weapons still
aimed at me. Another faceless, anonymous Corpse came forward then, searched me
for the weapons I wasn’t carrying, jerked my anns behind me, and clamped
binders on my wrists. When he was through a third one took his place: Fahd,
Borosage’s chief goon.

As he cleared his faceplate I saw the shadows of a
half-healed cosmo job still marring his face. I remembered suddenly what Miya had
done to his weapon the last time he’d seen us ... what the exploding plasma
rifle had done to his eyes. I looked at his eyes now.

His new eyes were a different color. They were green. And
the pupils weren’t round; they were slitted. He’d needed a transplant ... but
he hadn’t needed that. I realtzed as he met my stare that he’d done it so that
every time he looked in a mirror he’d remember how much he hated us ....

“Where’s the girl?” he said. He wasn’t carrying a gun this
time. His armored fists were clenched at his sides.

“Wha’—?” I said blankly; realtzed he meant Miya ... realtzed
they’d gassed us without my even knowing it. I took a deep breath. “Gone.”

His mailed fist hit me before I could duck out of the wa],
and sent me sprawling. “Don’t lie to me, freak.”

I sat up, slowly and awkwardly, my head ringing with the
blow, my ears filled with the sound of Joby screaming my name. Fahd stood over me,
blocking the light. My blood was a wet smear on his gloved fist. “No’ ... lying,”
I mumbled.

“He isn’t lying, Lieutenant,” someone called out. ‘A11 scans
show the rest of the building’s empty.”

Fahd leaned down and hauled me to my feet. “So the HARM
bitch ran out on you when she saw us coming.” He smirked.

Fuck you
—I barely swallowed the words in time. “She
lef’ b’fore you came,” I said. “To get food.” He laughed. I swore under my
breath, hating myself for saying that much.

“She has to be here. Look at my son!”

I recognrzed Natasa’s voice. I craned my neck past Fahd to
catch a glimpse of Joby, remembering that Natasa had never seen Joby this way
before—as a normal, functioning child, without Miya’s help or guidance.

“She’s not here, Burnell,” someone said; the voice was familrar,
but I couldn’t place it. Bodies shifted in the background, until finally I
could put a face to the voice. It was Perrymeade.

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but—” He moved closer to

Natasa, took Joby’s straining hand in his as Joby reacned
out to me and called my name again.

Natasa came to stand in front of me. His grip on Joby
tightened as Joby tried to squirm free. Joby began to cry.

(It’s all right, Joby,) I thought, beginnirg to get enough
control back to use my telepathy. But I couldn’t keep him from seeing the blood
running down my face. (I can’t hold you right now—) I twisted my pinioned hands
behind me. (Stay with your father. You’ll be safe.)

Joby stopped struggling. He relaxed against the hard shell
of his father’s body artnor, wiping his nose on his sleeve, but he was still
looking at me. Natasa looked at me too, meeting my eyes for the first time. “How?”
he asked.

“ft’s this place,” I murmured.

“How—?” he said again, demanding.

“ft’s a ... healing place.”

Fahd grunted. Perrymeade pushed past him to stand beside Natasa.
“ft’s the reefs, Burnell,” he said softly. “It has to be .... Isn’t it—?” He
turned to me.

I stared at him, silent.

“Answer the man, freak—” Fahd’s fist came up again.

Natasa blocked the blow with an armored hand. “Not in front
of my son,” he said, and the words were deadly. He looked at me again, and his
dark eyes, so much like his son’s, doubled the urgency of Perrymeade’s pale
gaze. “Please,” he said, almost humbly this time. “Tell me how this could be
possible ... ?” He glanced down at Joby as disbelief stole his thoughts away.

“I told you,” I said thickly, sickened by the realtzation
that he’d tell his wife, and she’d tell Tau, and ten minutes after that this
wouldn’t be a shue and a healing place anymore, it would be Tau’s latest mining
and research complex. They’d destroy the miracle that was here, trying to find
it, profit off of it, and never even understand what they’d done.

Natasa looked back at me with the same kind of incredulous
wonder, not even registering my expression. “Then fus’s—cured?”

“No,” I said. “Not if you take him away now. Miya says it
takes time for the neurological changes to imprint. He needs more time.”

Fahd grunted again, his disgust showing.

“Miya ...” Natasa said, and his face hardened. He shook his
head, starting to turn away.

“You’ll lose it all!” I said.

“Come on, Joby,” he whispered. “Let’S go home. Mommy’s
waiting.” He went back through the ring of guards, carrying his son toward the
hovering gunships. Joby began to struggle again. He called my name== reaching
toward me over his father’s shoulder.

Fahd moved in on me, blocking my view of them before I could
answer. He caught hold of my coat again. “When’s she coming back?”

“Who?” I said.

He slapped me, openhanded, keeping me on my feet with the
augmented strength of his grip. “You little mindraper. Whsn—?”

“I don’t know!” I mumbled, managing to spit in his face.

“The hell you don’1—”

I tried to twist away as I sensed the next blow coming ...
looked up again in confusion when it didn’t hit me.

Perrymeade had stepped between us. I looked at Fahd’s face,
not sure which of us was more surprised. “Stop it,” Peffymeade said, with a
quiet reasonableness that he didn’t really feel.

Fahd jerked free of Perrymeade’s grip. “You’ve got no authority
here,” he said, his voice sour with resentment. But he didn’t hit me again. “If
you really don’t know anything, boY, you’re already dead,” he muttered, shoving
me forward through the gauntlet of armored bodies toward the waiting flyers.

(Cat—!)

I gasped as the call rattled inside my skull. It wasn’t
Joby. It was Miya.

(No!) I thought. (No! Tau is here—) I didn’t know why in
hell she’d come back so soon
why now
—
?

Someone shoved me again. My body moved like a drone across
the balcony as my psi escaped through a spark-gap of spacetime to find her, and
say
good-bye.