Psion (28 page)

He stopped at the door, his hand on the open-plate, and turned back. He glanced from her to me and back at her again; something happened between them for a long minute that they closed me out of. But his face didn’t change. “I don’t need that. I don’t need anyone.” He went out the door and he didn’t come back.

Jule’s hands let me
go,
I heard her move away from me. I slumped in my chair, fumbling in my pockets for the pack of camphs. I found it, stared at it for a minute, thinking about Dere. And then I crumpled the whole pack and threw it at the door. “Shit!” I stood up. “I didn’t mean for it to happen! Dere was my
friend,
I only wanted to help him. Why
don’t
he believe that! Why can’t he-
“ I
stopped, as I saw her face. She was standing very still, and I thought no one should have to feel what I saw then in her eyes. She was trying to keep control, (but her emotions were too strong for her, they’d always been too strong, and now. . . .) A rush of agony poured out of her mind.

I took a deep breath, clenching my hands: (Jule . . . what’s wrong? You want me out of here? Are you all right?)

She looked at me with panic in her eyes, and a tear slipped out and down. “Damn it, Cat!” Then all the tears broke free and she was sobbing, (Don’t do that!)

I hung onto my chair. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s-not your fault. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. . . .” Her hand rose to cover her mouth. “How could I be so
blind!
”

Siebeling.
Siebeling had made this happen. “Jule, he didn’t mean it.”

“You know . . . what he said. And you know it was the truth. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t even want me, he doesn’t care.”

“He couldn’t have meant it like that. He knows you . . .” I fell over the words, feeling helpless, feeling like a fool.
“Better than anybody.”
Except me.

“It is true! He’s felt that way . . . ever since he lost his wife and son. I thought this was different, that I was. But I was wrong again!” She bit her lips, wiping at her eyes.

I went to her and put my arms around her. She held onto me, sagging against my shoulder, sobbing again. Her grief filled my mind and became my own; until just for a second I wanted to break away. But I knew that everything had already gone far beyond that, and at least I had to give her something to hold onto.

And she said, so softly I barely heard it, “I hate everything.” I held her closer, feeling her warmth, and kissed the shining midnight of her hair.
“No, Jule, no.
. . . Everything’s gonna be all right.” My throat was so tight that I could barely get the words out. My mind accepted her need, the way her mind had always accepted mine; asking no questions, only trying to show her that she wasn’t alone, she’d never have to be alone. . . .

And after a while the sobbing died away. I swallowed hard and said, “Jule . . . I never learned a poem in Oldcity that you’d want to hear.
How about a joke?”

Jule pulled back to look at me as if I’d lost my mind, and I grinned.

“What would a five-hundred-kilo talking rat say?”

She shook her head. “I-I don’t know.”

Dropping my voice about, an octave, I said, “’Here, kitty, kitty . . .’”

She said, “Oh . . .” She started to giggle, and then she started to laugh. For a minute we stood there like a couple of idiots, laughing, and the tears were still running down her cheeks. And then I wasn’t sure I had the right to, but I said, “Do you want to talk about it?” She stiffened against me, against answering; but then she nodded. We sat down again at the table. I watched her with her face in her hands and her dark hair slipping down. For the first time I noticed the wildflowers she’d brought in to make the room her own, wilting now between us in a bowl. They smelled like spring.

She didn’t say anything for a while. She almost seemed afraid to look at me. “It’s stupid . . . how hard it is to talk about yourself . . . it’s such a stupid story.”

But she opened her mind at last, and began to show it to me.

I entered the memories as she let them rise: memories of a little
girl
whose mind always made her feel too much when she looked at everyone; who had to share every emotion, and couldn’t even keep her own to herself. . . . Memories of growing up in a shining, empty world where objects had more meaning than human lives, with people you knew didn’t care about you, or even each other, anymore. . . .
Knowing that your very existence was a humiliation to them, another blow driving them further apart.
Memories of finally leaving them and your whole life behind, because you couldn’t live with your own emotions and their lack of them any more.
Moving on and on, trying to escape what there was no escape from-living everyone else’s hurts and hatreds and lacks, because you couldn’t help it.
Caring about their pain, because you couldn’t help it; being used and hurt, again and again, because you cared too much.
And all she wanted was peace, and someone she didn’t have to be wrong about.

But then she was remembering Siebeling, she’d really believed he was the one- A sob caught in her throat.
(Because it was all true. . . .)

“Jule, what are you ashamed of?”

“I drive everyone away! I’m weak. I’m
neurotic,
I don’t know how to have a real relationship. I tried to drown myself-I couldn’t even live with myself.”

“It ain’t true.” I shook her gently. “There’s nothing weak about you. Humans . . . shouldn’t have to live inside everyone else, too; they have to have protection. But when you’re born a freak, you don’t have it, and nobody else knows how to give it to you. . . . I mean, it was never your fault. You can’t blame yourself for the way you were born.”

She frowned.

“I know what I’m saying, Jule,” knowing I wasn’t saying it right. “Listen to me. You’re no fool for trying to love him, or wanting his love. And anybody who’d ever let you go is the real fool.”

She sighed, a long, shaky sigh.

“Siebeling don’t blame you for suffering, for hurting. He helped you learn to stop having to feel everything and be hurt by it. He knows how hard it was.” If he was even half of what she thought of him, he did; but right then I had a hard time pretending to believe he was even human.

She almost smiled, but then her face twisted like she still didn’t know what to feel.

“He didn’t mean it, Jule. I ought to know, if anybody does. He’s half out of his mind over what’s happening here; he ain’t thinking straight, he’s too full of guilt and too confused. Ain’t that what you kept trying to show me? He didn’t even know what he was saying.” And I didn’t think about what I was saying, didn’t choke on the words, only wanting to say whatever I had to to make her stop feeling that way. “He’s scared and angry, because he’s in love with you, and he’s afraid to admit it because he’s afraid of losing you like he lost his wife.”

She stood up. “Is it true-?” She shivered.

“It’s all true.” I just let it come, not sure where it was coming from, not even sure who I was talking about anymore, because- “Because he ain’t the only one who feels that way.” I only knew what I’d said after the words were out-and it was only after I heard them that I knew they were true. (I love you. I love you.)

She reached out across the table and took my hands. She kissed me once-my mind filled up with her emotions, with all the tenderness I’d ever known. She whispered. “Thank you, Cat . . . you’re the best, the only real friend I’ve ever had.” She looked up at me again, with her storm-cloud eyes.

But her lover would always be Siebeling. And as I understood that, something snapped inside me, like a broken-off piece of her pain. Suddenly I was five years
old,
hurting so bad I wanted to cry. Why him? Why did it have to be him, why couldn’t it be me? I’d never had anything!

But love was blind, they said, love was crazy-love didn’t have any heart, and so it ripped out your own. Jule had taught me how to care; I knew I’d never be able to stop caring about her now. I moved around the table and held her again, just for a minute, pretending she was mine. And then finally I said, “It’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right. I promise you.”

I left her apartment, and went out into the night.

I turned on the light.

“How the hell did you get in here?” Siebeling leaped up out of his chair; he’d been sitting like a stone in the darkness of his room. The look on his face was worth the effort.

“Slip’s secret.” I twitched my mouth. “And what the hell do I want-since you’re gonna ask that next. I’m here because you got only two people you can count on in this snake pit, and you left both of them bleeding. I came to make you listen to some true things, you piece of-“

“Get out.”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head, moving toward him, feeling the grief and rage caught inside me build again at the sight of him. “I ain’t getting out of here until I make you understand.” I reached out and caught him by the front of his thick sweater, and shoved him up hard against the wall. He started to struggle, but he hadn’t learned to fight on the streets. I pinched a nerve; he yelped and stopped struggling. “Yeah, that’s right, Doc. I can be everything you think I am, if you make me. Don’t make me do it-because it ain’t what I want.” I let go of him and backed off. “I just want you to listen.”

He straightened away from the wall, his eyes dark with confusion and sudden fear. He rubbed his neck.
“All right.
Say what you came to say.” He moved back to the deep-cushioned chair and sat down in it again. He didn’t relax any.

I stayed where I was. “First, I’m gonna tell you once more, I’m on your side!” I didn’t try to make him believe it, didn’t even touch his mind, because he was so sure I was going to use my psi against him. “I know you don’t wanna believe it, because you know better than anybody why I ought to cut your strings. And you don’t figure I could give a damn about anybody but me-why should I, right? You sure as hell don’t. It’s your kind that made me believe it, all my life. But everybody ain’t like you. Jule ain’t. And Dere-wasn’t. And Rubiy-
“ I
took a deep breath. “You don’t understand what he really is, you don’t know! I know. He’s an iceman, a psycho; anything you ever thought about him ain’t close to sick enough! He murdered Dere and he enjoyed it, and I want to make him pay. I’d cut off my own hand before I’d work for him, can’t you understand that? I’ll do anything I have to do to bring him down-and to make sure he never hurts Jule. Anything!
Even if it means saving you.”
I glanced down. “And maybe I even owe you that much.” I looked up again. “I never want to owe you nothin’.”

He settled deeper in his chair, glaring at me. But he was listening.

“You think everything’s lost, don’t you, now that-now that they caught Dere. You got us all into this, and now you think we’re as good as dead and it’s
all your
fault.” I felt the surge of his guilt and knew I was right. Welcome to the club. “So you’re just gonna give it all up, cut everything and everybody loose and just sit here in the dark waiting till it’s over-just like you done with your whole life after your wife and your kid were gone. I’ll bet they’d be real proud to see what you’re made
of,
and what they did to you. . . .”

His fingers sank into the soft arms of the chair like it was flesh.

“Well, I got another answer for
you,
since you’re not looking any more-and this one ain’t gonna risk nobody but me. Rubiy’s sending me back to the mines, because he trusts me. He thinks I’ll make a joining with him and show him the way in. But instead I’m gonna screw his
plans,
tell them the truth when I get there. Then they’ll come and save you, and everything’s gonna be fine. You got nothing to worry about.”

He stared at me.
“God!
If I could only believe you. . . .”

“You only have to try.” I moved away from the wall and started pacing in the small space of floor in front of him. “But why should you believe me-you don’t even believe Jule. You don’t give a damn about her, or what you did to her-making her fall in love with you, and then telling her she’s nothing. You think I’m selfish, you crippled son of a bitch! You ought to look in a mirror.” I turned back to him. “I’d let Rubiy have you in a second, if Jule didn’t care for you so much that it would kill her. You lousy bastard, you don’t deserve her, you don’t deserve to live-“

I never finished it. Because his mind cried, (I know, I know . . .), and I knew suddenly that everything Jule had told me about him, that I’d told back to her, was true: some part of me had always seen it, there inside him. The one he really hated was himself. He’d never understood why his family had been destroyed while he went on living-and so he’d stopped living too, even though his body still went through the motions. He was suffering as much as the psions he treated, but there was no one he could turn to for help, no one who understood what he’d lost. He’d tried to do something good with the Sakaffe psionics research, something to help him feel like he had a right to be alive. But all that had done was cause a good man’s death, and trap him in a hopeless situation; and
Jule. . . .
His face collapsed.

He cared about her, all right. If I’d been blind and deaf, I’d still have been sure of it-the feeling was that strong. He’d hurt her because he was afraid-afraid of losing her, afraid to face her death, and his own. And I saw how much he wanted her, and wanted to make it all right; how much he wanted to stop hurting himself and everyone else, he’d been so wrong about everything. But it had been such an old-habit, to break free of, being so wrong. And now he’d thought there was no hope left. . . .