Psion (35 page)

“It’s true, then, everything Joraleman told me? I thought he must have been-exaggerating.”
(Crazy).
“The Hydrans focused telekinetic energy through you, to cause so much destruction?” He sounded like he’d never really be able to believe it.

“Oh, yeah. . . .” I put a hand up to my head. “Believe it. I was there when it happened, and I got the headache to prove it.” Somehow it didn’t come out sounding like a joke.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have given you something.” They’d let him treat my back, but I hadn’t said anything about my head.

“I didn’t want anything. I don’t want no drugs; it could get in the way of my Gift if-when I have to use it. I can handle the pain.” I was handling it; Rubiy was right. Somewhere I was finding the control, because I had to. I wondered if Rubiy was going to be right about this meeting, too. “Don’t worry about me.”

Siebeling looked at me for a minute, and then he shook his head. “And you’re seeing some sort of energy?”

“I don’t see it, exactly. I feel it, like colored noise.
Humans more than anything else.
Psions are like suns.” I wondered if the Hydrans saw the world like that, and I wished suddenly that I could see myself from the outside. “It’s . . . I dunno-“

“It’s incredible.” A part of him wished he could get me into a lab and study me. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. I think you’re probably very lucky you’ve got a mind left.”

“The Hydrans wouldn’t hurt me. They know me, they trust me, they think-
“ I
broke off, remembering the message they’d left in my mind. “The first time they saw me they knew I was alien, like they were; even though I was from the mines.” It wasn’t hard to say that, anymore. “It didn’t surprise them that one of their own people could come from outside. They remembered it from-way back. But the oldest memories are tangled up now. They don’t seem to know anymore what a lot of it really means.”

“They gave a lot to you.”

I touched my head.
“Yeah.
More than I knew. . . . They tried to make a joining with me, the first time they saw me. But with them a joining really is total, it’s every part of them, and I couldn’t do it. . . . I still can’t, really.
There’s
always things I want to hold back; even though they made me a real psion. They said it’s because I was raised like a human. Humans can’t let go of themselves and give everything that way, they ain’t strong enough.”

“You weren’t just raised like a human; you are human.
As much as you are Hydran.”
Like he thought I could forget that.

“My bad luck.” I frowned. “Anyway, I couldn’t take the joining, it almost. . . . But when it happened, it changed me, my psi . . . all the barriers came down. . . . And when it happened, I saw a lot of what they remembered. Are all Hydrans like that? Do they share everything? And what are they doing here?”

“I don’t know much about these people, really. I don’t think anyone does. Even to another Hydran the amount of telepathic communion they share would seem extreme-isolation and
hardship have
forced them so close together just for survival. Most other Hydrans lost any group mind practice long ago. If my wife and I had been that far apart psychologically, we’d never have . . . been what we were. But I do remember a few things. For instance, their belief in a god-being. . . .” He leaned back in the seat.

So we kept talking, to keep from thinking-talking about the Hydrans of Cinder and what they’d been once. About what it must have meant to be part of a whole civilization that was united in a way the Human Federation could never be. About Cinder becoming life for the Hydran colonists and giving them shelter when their empire failed, until it had become a holy thing, a religion, to them. And about why they’d come all the way to the Crab.

“The Hydrans were miners? They mined telhassium, too. . . . Why?”

“Probably for the same reasons we do.”

“My people . . .” I felt my face twist.

Siebeling said, gently, “There’s nothing to indicate that they used slave labor. Respect for every part of life is as much a part of them as psionic ability; it has to be, to protect them from themselves. But don’t see them as simplistic saints and martyrs, either. They have their imperfections, they share the whole spectrum of emotion with human beings; they have their resentments and anger and selfish impulses, even if they can’t act on them as easily. And the ones you met here have had a long time and good reasons to grow inbred and xenophobic. They used you-even if you let them-to get what they wanted; just the way Rubiy tried to do. Accept your heritage, but accept it honestly. Don’t deny your humanity for a dream.”

I didn’t say anything, but I guess he understood what showed on my face. Because suddenly he looked down, and he was thinking about me being half and half . . . like his son had been half and half.
The son who would never hear those words from him.
Thinking about how I’d made him remember his loss, and see what had happened to his own life-made him look at it until he finally knew he had to live with it. And that all the thanks he’d given me was to make things worse than ever for me; that he’d hurt me just like he’d hurt . . . Jule, and everyone else. He said, “Cat, I don’t know how-“

“Look, just forget about it. It
don’t
matter now.” I realized that it really didn’t, anymore . . . any more than it mattered now if I never learned whether he was my father.

He didn’t say anything else for a while. But then he started to talk again, as if he was trying to explain something; I wasn’t sure whether it was all meant for me or not. “When you feel that if you looked around you, everything you’d see would be sick, with no way to cure it, you close your eyes-and your mind-until you don’t see anything anymore. Even a private hell is more appealing than a public one . . . sometimes.” He wanted me to understand why he hadn’t known what he was doing to me when he sent me back to Contract Labor.

“Yeah, I guess.” I felt him look at me. “Jule knew.”

“Yes . . .” And it was back in his mind again, losing her, grief and fear for the only other one he’d shared as much with-the only other woman he’d ever loved as much as his wife. His wife: golden, her skin, her hair . . . she was beautiful . . . and he’d lost her, too.
And remembering all that again now was almost more than he could bear.

I didn’t know what to say, so for a while I didn’t say anything. Then I said, “Starfall,” which was what they said in Oldcity, when your house burned, when the surplus food allotment was contaminated . . . when somebody lost everything. And I wanted him to know that in a way I did understand, but it seemed like it wasn’t enough. I thought about the time he’d said he was sorry to me, maybe he had meant it. I wondered what I’d really expected him to feel. “What did your kid look like?”

“My kid . . .” He stopped, and took a deep breath. “He probably would have looked a lot like you, actually.”

“I wish I could have met him.”

He glanced at me, and smiled just a little.

The sun came up, fading the colored night into sea-blue. And I finally knew, without being told. . . .
“Now.
Stop, we’re there.” I looked out over the control panel. There was nothing to see except snow and sky glaring; but my inner sight showed me an energy source so bright it was almost black. I frowned. “Is it underground? There’s nothing out there, but I can feel-“

“Something’s out there; the instruments are going crazy. A shield generator would have to have at least part of its plant aboveground; probably Rubiy’s left the scatter screen up around it. I think we’ll be seeing it any time now.” His hands tightened on the wheel.

I nodded. “Look, I’ve been thinking-let me go in first, alone, all right?”

“You?”

“Yeah.
Stay out here and back me up. I mean, we don’t know what he’s planning-but he’s out for revenge, and it could be anything. And I just figure . . . that I could handle it better, being the telepath. There’s no way we can take him by surprise now. This way, if something happens, at least he won’t get us both at once, like he did with Jule and me.” I pulled on my mittens.

“I see. . . . Are you sure you can do this?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I won’t know till I try. But he’s got to know now that I beat him once, at least: when he tried to probe me after he murdered Dere. He ain’t perfect. That ought to be good for something.”

“You tricked Rubiy.” He’d known it for days, but now he finally believed it.

I grinned. “See, Doc, I ain’t such a deadhead, after all. If I did it once, I can trick him again. Dere always said that’s how psions play the game to win.
Like playing Last Chance.”
I twitched my hand, catching imaginary game pieces; trying to make myself believe it.

Siebeling didn’t say anything. He was thinking about what I’d
said,
and about Jule out there. And he wanted to be a telepath more than- “All right.”

I pushed the faceplate on my parka hood down and opened the door.

“Wait.”

I looked back at him.

“Do you want to try a joining?” He was almost embarrassed, as if he felt like he didn’t really have the right to ask.

“Yeah. . . . No.” I thought this was something I had to do myself; something I owed to Rubiy. And some part of me still wasn’t sure I could count on being joined to Siebeling, if Jule wasn’t there between us.

“It’s better if we’re not tied. But if I need help”-I jumped down into the snow-“you’ll know it!”

“Be careful. Don’t . . . take any chances.”

“Not with Jule’s life.” Ahead of me was only white noise. I started walking toward it.

There wasn’t anything-and then there was, right in front of me, as if it had been there all along.
The shield control.
Even though I knew what was happening, it startled me more than it should have. I stopped where I was, holding the cold, bright air in my lungs.

The building was a huge metal bowl flipped upside down, with a ring of towers and filament wires wrapping it like a web. The bowl was coated with ice, in layers that had rippled and run, flowed and refrozen along lines of force until it looked like a spun sugar castle. The silver-coated towers dripped icicles like frozen tears. And all around it a forest of the crystal trees made their glittering music. The sight took my breath away, for a long minute I stood there forgetting everything but my eyes. But then I remembered what this place was, and how it had cut off a whole world from the rest of the galaxy. I made my eyes search out the entrance, and started toward it.

And as I walked, I thought about what I was doing here. And how half a year ago, back in Oldcity, there wasn’t anything that could have gotten me to do this . . . nobody I would have done it for. Then I thought about how I’d never wished I was back in Oldcity instead, no matter what was happening to me here.

No matter what.
I focused my thoughts and wove my mind into a wall, blocking the bright noise of the shield’s energy and my own battered body. None of that was important now; it was only static, and once I stopped listening, it didn’t exist. There was no trace in my mind of anyone else’s trying to reach me-not Jule, not Rubiy. I took out my stungun, and then I went into the building.

The hallway was dark after the brightness of the snow, but not too dark for my cat eyes. I pushed back my hood and unfastened my parka so I could move easily. There was humming in the air, and something more-the crackling overflow of trapped energies, that made my skin tingle. I couldn’t help wondering if it was something more than the shield. But still there was no touch against my mind. I could almost be here alone. I didn’t let my mind explore; letting Rubiy make the first move instead. I could see light up ahead now, real light, coming from one of the control rooms.

I reached the doorway and stepped into the light. The first thing I saw was Jule, just sitting there, waiting.
But not because she wanted to.
Her dark hair floated on the charged air as she turned her head to look at me; her mouth was open as if she was trying to warn me, but couldn’t. Her gray eyes were the eyes of something caught in a trap.

“Well, Cat. It seems I’m a good judge of human nature after all.”

I raised my head. Rubiy was waiting for me across the room. He was sitting in front of a control panel, with circuitry creeping up the walls, surrounding us all.
Making me think about webs: spiderwebs, mindwebs.

I raised the stungun, and like some fool in a threedy show I said, “You’re under arrest, Rubiy. If you move I’ll-“

The stungun jerked itself out of my hand and flew across the room. I watched it drop down on the panel behind him. I’d been so caught up in protecting my body from a mind attack that I’d forgotten to watch the gun. I kept trying to swallow, but all of a sudden my throat was as dry as dirt.

“You won’t
be needing
that.” His face was as calm and unreadable as ever, as if nothing ever touched him.

I shrugged, trying to match his expression. “I’ve come. What do you want?”

“So, you really came to risk your life for Jule taMing?
For the daughter of Centauri Transport?”

I nodded, holding my mind closed as tight as a fist. But still he didn’t try anything against it.