Mind Over Psyche (22 page)

Despite himself, Joshua had been wondering just that. Ecstasy and alien origin aside, the psychologist part of him would have diagnosed her with catatonia—and that was something he'd worked with before. “I don't know,” he said, thinking aloud. “I might be able to get her to eat, but I can't guarantee anything. I mean, I'd be using alien techniques. I have no idea if they'd work. But if it's okay,
I'd try.”

Suddenly, Joshua found himself grabbed and pulled through the crowd of children to stand in front of the girl and her mother, and Joshua realized Ocapo had been translating the whole time. Nonetheless, he emphasized, “Tell them I don't know if this will work. I could make thin
gs worse.”

“They trust you as I do,” Ocapo reassured. “If you can get her to eat, it would buy her some time for the right everyn to
find her.”

Still Joshua hesitated. What if he messed up something that caused the everyn to not want to bond with her? His mother had taught him never to touch a baby wild animal because the human scent would make the mother reject it. What if he put some kind of psychic tai
nt on her?

The aging healer looked up from the girl and met his eyes. Even though he wasn't psychic, Joshua could feel his re
assurance.

“Okay,” he said, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. “I need two cups, one with something the healers think she can tolerate—broth or whatever—and one for me. Water's fine in that one. Then, just don't disturb us awhile. I don't know how long it
'll take.”

Ocapo clapped his shoulder and left to get the drinks. Joshua knelt down beside the girl. He observed her for a minute, taking in her posture, her breathing, anything he could use to reach her. “I don't suppose you'd make this easy on us, would you, baby?” He asked her. “Your mom's awfully worried a
bout you.”

Ocapo brought the two cups, and experimentally, Joshua set one against her hands, waved the fragrant broth under her nose. Her nostrils didn't even twitch in
reaction.

“That won't work,” Ocapo
commented.

“Didn't think it would. Just curious is all. What's she looking at, do y
ou think?”

Ocapo sighed such a wistful sigh that Joshua turned to look at him. His expression was a near match to the girl's. “Your language doesn't have words for it,” he said, then nodded and went to sit near th
e parents.

Joshua turned back to the girl. “Well, whatever it is, we'll see if we can make a dinner show of it, okay, honey?” He shook himself to release his tensions and doubt and, despite his earlier objections to Deryl, tried to “do Neuro Linguistic Programming on
an alien.”

The first time he heard the story about using NLP techniques to bring back a catatonic patient, he'd been fascinated. He'd bugged his father for weeks to try it out on someone—or better yet, let him try it out—until his father had finally scolded, “This is not a game, Joshua. NLP is a tool. If I think the conditions are right, I may attempt it, but only if I'm comfortable. As for you: Give yourself time. I have no doubt that when you're older and more experienced, opportunities will present th
emselves.”

His father had been right. So far, Joshua had used this particular method on an autistic child he babysat for a client of his father; as a case study with his father in Colorado; and on Deryl. Now, he'd try it with
an alien.

He set the cups in identical positions by his knee and hers, settled himself into a complimentary posture, and readied himself to enter “uptime,” match the girl's rhythms, and get into
her world.

Maybe it was because she was psychic. Maybe it had to do with the training Terry had given him, or something about the world itself. Whatever the reason, he found his awareness almost immediately swept away. Something similar had happened with Deryl, but it had taken hours, and he'd found himself in a cloudy and gray world. Her world dazzled his mind's eye like being inside a ray of sunlight. As he saw with her, he, too, focused on its source, and it was everything beautiful and holy
and right.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, and it was a prayer. In his vision, he sank to his knees beside the girl. Of course she was content to sit there, gazing and longing, yet patient. That rapture, heaven, was hers, too. She just had to wait to be i
nvited in.

He would wait
with her.

No
, came a knowing, gentle and amused, in Joshua's mind. He was loved, he was cherished, but he was not invited in now, nor was it his place to sit and wait. There were things he must do, beginning with this child b
eside him.

He became aware again of his own body and of the girl sitting entranced before him. Automatically, he checked to make sure he was still in sync with her, and reached for the cup, raised it to his lips, and
swallowed.

She mimicked
his moves.

He heard the gasps of amazement from the people around him, but filed them away along with the amazing rapture he'd felt. Right now, his only focus was on going through the motions of drinking. When the cup was empty, someone refilled it and he took her through the motions a second time. When no one refilled it again, he let her return to her position of waiting while he decided what to do next. He could try to bring her out of it entirely, but he wasn't sure he should, or that he wanted to. She rested in a place of near perfection—what would happen if he took her away from it with nothing to offer
in return?

Better let the everyn do it if it's meant to be
, he thought. Dying didn't seem like such a fearful thing, after all. Still keeping his breathing in sync with hers, he leaned forward and grasped her hand. “Be patient a little longer, sweetheart. Heaven will always be there, but right now, I think you're meant to stay with us awhil
e longer.”

For just a moment, she focused on him, and smiled a more natural, childlike smile. Then the unfocused rapture
returned.

He sat back on his heels. “That's the best I'm gonna do,” he said to Ocapo, then laughed as the girl's parents threw their arms around him. “Tell them they're welcome,” he said to his friend as he returned t
heir hugs.

The healer knelt down beside the girl, his trembling fingers moving over her face, turned to Joshua, then Ocapo, then Joshua again. This time, his eyes were wide a
nd amazed.

“He wanted you to do a cleansing,” Ocapo said, “and I told him human healers didn't need to, and that at the keep, you'd healed dozens of injured Kanaan witho
ut break.”

Joshua shook his head. “Tell him I didn't do the healing. I was a conduit, more like glorified jumper cables or s
omething.”

Terry smirked at his analogy. “Perhaps so, but no healer could have d
one this.”

Joshua felt himself blushing and just a little giddy. He snagged Ocapo by the arm. “Tell you what, though. I do have some excess energy I'd like to work off. What say we go find the dancing? We can teach each other so
me moves.”

*

Summer again. Too hot. Too bright. Anguish returned for Kanaan and Gardianju. For the Ydrel, too, and this time, his agonies insinuated themselves into her mind, so that sometimes she could not tell their realit
ies apart.

She sat in the middle of an open field under the blazing sun, yet couldn't escape the feeling that she was trapped within padded walls and the light was wrongly bluish and cool upon her skin. She felt confined, bound, and her arms kept crossing themselves across her stomach. Things in her head skittered and bustled: whispers of thought, passing streaks of emotion, mists of attitude, and they crowded her as well. Her mind struggled to sort them out, and she reeled in confus
ion until:

One feeling loomed over all else:
Pressure.

One thought shouted over the others: This
is Wrong!

One emotion overrode the re
st: Anger.

One target became her focus: The
twin suns.

You are not sisters!
She snarled at the smaller of the two stars. Fury burned inside her more hotly than the heat that stripped her world of its moisture.
You are an intruder!
She saw it so clearly now: two suns—one villain, one hostage. Caught in a struggle of domination versus freedom. Kanaan caught in the middle. Kanaan being ripped apart in the battle. She being tor
n with it.

No! Intruder!
She stood, shaking, glaring at the suns. They seared her retinas. She didn't care. They could take her vision, but they would not take her world.
Leave us!
She seethed
.
Go away!

Hardly aware of what she was doing, she reached deep into her fury, deep into the heart of Kanaan, drawing all the power into herself. It filled her, coursed through her. She no longer saw, no longer felt, no longer heard. There was nothing now, not even her anger: just power and one sin
gle focus.

Leave!

She felt the power race from her like a beam, sharp, focused, violent. She felt it impact against the star, felt it knocked off its route. But it wasn
't enough.

She reached out, found lines of power in the atmosphere, in life. Across her world, people and beasts fell unconscious where they stood, and flowers wilted as in a sudd
en freeze.

LEAVE!

She reached to the Ydrel, grabbed the power of his mind and pulled. She felt his strength move though her, until she no longer felt him, j
ust power.

GO!
With an animal scream of fury, she threw her power at the star. She held the scream, held the power, held her fury, until she felt the star grudgingly release its ties to her sun and again move o
n its way.

Then she collapsed among the dying flowers, blood streaming from her ears and nose, the power gone, her life spent, her mission
complete.

But as she let out her last breath, she saw the planet faint in the sky and knew she hadn't completely succeeded. Too late. There would be others. And the Ydr
el…Tasmae…

Tasmae suddenly spasmed and it was all the healer and Leinad could do to steady her against the seizures. They were absorbed in holding her down when the earth
quake hit.

*

Deryl was in the high intensity ward again. He didn't remember why—so much had confused him then. Anger he couldn't control burned through him—anger at the voices, at the staff, at the cold lights that nonetheless seared his eyes whether they were open
or closed.

He was standing in the padded room, screaming for everything to leave him alone, when he felt…something, someone…reach into his very soul and drain him. He collapsed into a catatonic state. Only when a lovesick nurse, Sachiko, was somewhat mischievously whispering the secret of her affair with the chief psychiatrist did he open his eyes and turn to her, nearly scaring her out of her wits. She
screamed.

Tasmae screamed as the shock of Gardianju's dying shook her system. Deryl felt her convulse as her body fought against the compulsion to follow the first Miscria into death. Her abilities went wild; her control of Kanaan slipped; the world reflected h
er throes.

Deryl reached out with his mind to steady her; to em
brace her.

The ground beneath
him shook.

*

“Nothing personal,” Joshua apologized to the tree as he buttoned his pants. He'd been a little hesitant when Ocapo had pointed him down the path and essentially told him “Go down a hundred yards or so and pick a tree,” but so far, nothing had reached out to
grab him.

He did say I was safe as long as I stayed out of the clearings
, Joshua reminded himself as he passed a spot where the trail branched off into one. The starlight reflected off a small pool of water to one side and frosted the grasses and leaves with silver. Under the willow-like trees grew the heavy moss that he knew felt softer than the most expensive carpet back home. It looked very inviting, and he wondered if that were part of the trap, and that once a weary Barin had settled himself to rest, the graceful, low branches would coil themselves a
round him.

Joshua heard a loud rustle and froze, still facing the clearing, ears straining to determine where the sound came from. He couldn't help thinking of the strange creatures roasting on spits in the camp. Were there other dangerous creatur
es nearby?

The rustling gr
ew nearer.

Then he heard a playful, feminine shriek, and the two lovers who had been flirting and chasing each other at the camp came crashing into the clearing. The woman dashed into the pond, paused to splash water at her mate, then started off again. He lunged to reach her and when he caught her, she didn't resist, but moved in close, cooing and giggling. She nuzzled his neck, breathing in his scent, and he followed suit, caressing her hair and bringing it up to his face. Her coos turned low and
sonorous.

Joshua realized he wa
s staring.

As quietly as he could, he backed up and headed to camp, face burning and missing Sachiko anew. He decided he'd ask Ocapo where their tent was and call i
t a night.

As he neared the camp, he heard the everyn kreeling again, and wondered if that had anything to do with the mating dance coming to an end. When he got to the campground, however, he found everything in a controlled fury. Parents dashed about, gathering children, herding them to the large dancing area and making them sit. Others threw dirt and water on the fires without worrying if they got any on the still-roasting meat. Joshua started to call out to ask what was going on, when the ground shook violently enough to knock him off
his feet.