Stewards of the Flame (34 page)

This knowledge came to him instantly, without rational deliberation, as a whole. He was less aware of it consciously than of what he was receiving from the Group, from Carla, from Kira—and of course from Peter. They were giving him a sense of
how
to do it, so that though he was willing to be burned, and knew he must be willing, at the same time he knew that he need not suffer any more harm than Peter himself had. That knowledge, too, came instantly. No more than a few seconds had passed.

Without hesitation Jesse thrust his hand forward to touch Peter’s, letting it be bathed by the flames.

He had thought he’d been high before, thought he knew what it meant to be high—but all that was nothing, compared to this. He was hovering somewhere in space beyond the planet. There was no space, no time, nothing left of the physical or mundane. There was only fire, a flame of light that enveloped and warmed him, but did not burn. All the universe was light. He was one with it, and with the others, yet was also himself; he trusted himself as he never had while worldbound.

At the edge of his perception, he knew Carla’s hand, too, was in the flame, and so was Kira’s. In the opposite semicircle, beyond the fireplace, the others’ fingers touched the flames of their candles, thus magnifying the collective power of the minds merged with his. He felt no pain, nor were his hand and arm damaged. They were impervious to flame. It was surreal . . . except that it seemed that nothing in his life had ever been real until now.

Peter was drawing his hand back out of the flame; only with psychic prompting did Jesse notice. He withdrew his own, realizing that though he had been conscious only of eternity, mere moments had elapsed. There was no end to the power of the human mind, he thought, awestricken, staring incredulously at his unburned fingers. It could do
anything
! At the moment, this fact did not scare him, though he guessed that once the high wore off, he would be unnerved by it. It was too late to ask whether he really wanted the degree of power he had assumed.

“It’s what we live by,” said Carla. “This is who we are, and we can’t deny it. We can’t betray our foretaste of what humans may become.”

He turned to her and they embraced. The others came to him and one by one embraced him, Peter first, then Kira, then all the rest, first laying their candles on the fire as Hari had now laid the torch. Greg, Michelle, Bernie, Anne, Kwame, Ingrid, Nathan, Liz, Erik, Dorcas . . . the friends he’d come to know as family, others meeting him for the first time, all pledged to him now as he to them, for as long as he lived. . . .

“What was that part about you sharing—even increasing—my danger?” Jesse said to Carla when the others had moved away. “You weren’t a novice.”

“Peter’s less experienced than Ian in sustaining grouped minds. Immunity to flame can’t be attained by any person alone, Jesse, not even after long practice. It requires the support of everyone who participates. If either you or I had panicked or lost focus when we were in such close rapport, all four of us would have been burned.”

Jesse tightened his arm around her. None of them had handled fire before without Ian present, he realized with awe. If he himself had faltered, he’d have brought Peter down, too. No doubt burns could have been healed, but shaken faith in the leader would have been irreparable.

He and Carla stood staring into the fireplace for a few more minutes. Then, as the mood of solemnity faded and the volume of the music swelled, they went joyfully to the tables spread with the wedding feast.

~
 
36
 
~

When Carla went back to the city for her next workweek, Jesse went with her. Though he still didn’t know how he’d occupy his days while she was working, neither of them wanted to spend more nights apart. They planned to return to the Island almost every offshift, as she had even before his arrival. Once used to the company of telepaths, Group members spent as much free time together as possible, and friends tended to congregate; hers favored the Lodge over the other safe gathering places.

Carla had neither friends outside the Group nor any contact with relatives. “My parents didn’t take me out of the crèche often,” she told him, “and I left home for good right after I finished school.” Having left home himself in youth, Jesse considered this both natural and fortunate—keeping Group membership secret must be awkward and painful for people close to their families. How, he wondered, did anyone hide a transformation as overwhelming as that of the Ritual? He supposed the impact of that miracle would wear off, eventually. But each time he looked down at his unburned hand, he was struck anew by awe at what had happened to him.

Before he left the Lodge, there were formalities. Jesse found that there were, in fact, passwords to learn—he had not met all the members, and in the city might need to identify them. Also, to his surprise, Peter asked for his consent to hypnosis.

“Since Ramón’s death I’ve given hypnotic protection to those at high risk,” Peter explained, “hospice caregivers, for example. It doesn’t interfere with the conscious mind, but does reduce the risk of Group secrets emerging spontaneously from a drugged mind. An expert investigator could extract them, but at least it would keep them from slipping out during casual talk with nurses or other patients.”

“And you think I should have this—protection.”

“Yes, as a precaution, before you live in the city with Carla. But we’re not going to put you at risk of getting caught with bodies, Jesse. Not except as a witness to burials here on the Island.”

“Why not? I’m as willing to take that risk as the rest of you.”

“I know you are, but there are reasons why it wouldn’t be wise.”

“I thought I was supposed to learn to care for the dying,” Jesse protested.

“Yes, eventually, but not in the city with anyone likely to die while you’re present. Originally I assumed that Ian would die at the Lodge, as he has always wished.”

The discussion closed there; Peter would say no more. The hypnosis was done in the lab, and Jesse remembered nothing of it afterward. He was glad of it, however. The idea that he might involuntarily endanger Carla haunted him.

She’d told him few details of her hacking activities. But as they waited on the city dock for a water taxi after mooring Peter’s plane, she said sadly, “If Ian is in a hospice, I suppose I should inactivate his file.”

“No,” Peter told her. “Ian said specifically that we are not to list him as in stasis before he dies. He has no family, after all, to inquire about him. I am his only legal heir.”

“But Peter, it’s dangerous to leave his file active. Someone in geriatrics may remember him, and what if he’s called for a mandatory health check?”

“He had one a few weeks before he got too weak to pass it. He asked for it, in fact, because he knew what would soon happen.”

“Ian
asked
for a health check? Voluntarily?”

“It surprised me,” Peter admitted. “He said he must do it to prevent being caught later, when they wouldn’t release him.” At Carla’s frown he added, “Yes, I know—it’s contrary to the policy he himself established. We reject so-called preventative care except the minimum required by law. But something made him believe it would be important for him to remain free without our having to hide the fact that he’s still alive. Did I ever tell you that he has precognitive dreams?”

“No,” said Carla. “Literally, you mean? Paranormal dreams?”

Peter nodded. “His abilities are far greater than ours, and precognition is, after all, a known psi talent, particularly among people experienced in remote viewing, as he is.”

Jesse, surprised, said, “Are you saying some people really foresee the future?”

“In dreams it’s fairly common, though I’ve never had such a dream myself. Ian rarely discusses his dreams, but he’s told me about some of them. The most recent made him feel he has something left to do in life, something that will require his action to be publicly acknowledged.”

“He’s kept out of the public eye for decades,” Carla protested. “What sort of action could be required of him?”

“He doesn’t know. He can’t even be sure that the dream was a true premonition; he never is, before events provide proof. But he asked me to tell you, Carla, so you’ll be sure not to inactivate his file.”

Ian also, Peter said, had expressed a strong desire to meet Jesse. They had been settled in the city only two days when Peter came by Carla’s apartment after work and accompanied them to the safe house where Ian was now living under Kira’s care. “I’ll feel honored to meet him,” Jesse said. “But why would he ask to see me, a stranger, when he’s dying?”

Peter was silent. Carla said, “He presided at the Ritual for all the rest of us. It’s hard for him, I suppose, to think of members coming in that he doesn’t know.”

Kira met them at the door. “He tires very quickly now,” she warned. “Don’t stay too long.”

Having been told that Ian was a hundred and thirty years old, Jesse had not known quite what to expect—but certainly not the vital, magnetic man he found. Ian, propped up on a couch in a room that looked nothing like a sickroom, did not even appear to be ill, let alone dying. He was thin; his hair was white and sparse; his skin was pale, almost translucent. But his eyes were alive with power as well as wisdom, and his voice was clear.

“So this is Jesse,” he said. “Sit beside me, Jesse, and let me get to know you.”

At a loss for what to say, Jesse approached the couch. Hastily Peter pulled a chair next to it for him to sit on and for that, Jesse was thankful; in another moment, he thought, he might have found himself kneeling.

There was silence. He longed to pour out his feelings to this man who was, he sensed, far more than he had guessed, despite all he’d heard of him these past weeks. And then he became aware that he didn’t need to. The telepathic link between them surpassed any he had experienced, even his link with Peter during the Ritual. If Ian wanted to know him, he had only to draw on that link. Words would be awkward and superfluous.

In the same moment, he knew why they all loved Ian, and knew that he, too, loved him and would weep at his death. But he would grieve for his own loss and the Group’s, not for Ian’s sake. Ian would die because it was time. He would not, Jesse felt, be extinguished. He knew this was an irrational feeling, against all his own past convictions, but he could not shake it.

“I wanted to be at your Ritual,” Ian told him. “but I found my legs would not support me. And then that night, I learned why they would not, and never will again. I dreamed again—Peter, hear this—and knew I dared not go to the Lodge. If I had gone, I might not have had strength enough to leave it again.”

Peter said, “It’s been your hope to eventually die at the Lodge ever since you built it, nearly a century ago. Why should you have to leave it?”

“Because there is something I must do that I can’t do there. I have no knowledge of what it could be. But in the dreams, I know I’m needed, just as I knew—” He broke off, turned back to Jesse. “Will you take my hand?” he asked.

Jesse gripped the firm hand offered him. “I wish it could have been in fire,” Ian told him, and he knew this for high praise.

“I will do it in fire here and now, if you ask me to,” he said sincerely, ignoring Kira’s frown. He was sure beyond question that with Ian he
could
do it.

“No matter,” said Ian. “I can probe you without that; your mind is strong.” Then for a moment it was as it had been with the Ritual torch, and he was free of time and space again, high again. . . .

Ian looked into his eyes and said, “I trust you, Jesse.” Then his fingers loosened and he lay back against the couch pillows, exhausted but apparently at peace.

Kira pulled the coverlet up over his shoulders, motioning them to go. Wordlessly they left the room. All the way home in the cab Jesse was silent, wondering what it was that Ian trusted him to achieve.

~
 
37
 
~

Peter took Jesse aside as they prepared to leave the Lodge for his second week in the city. “I didn’t want to intrude on your honeymoon,” he said, “but if you’ve got some free time, I have a suggestion to make. Would you be willing to take on a job this workweek?”

“That would be great,” Jesse said with enthusiasm. He’d dreaded having nothing to do in the daytime but more sightseeing.

“You won’t enjoy it. It’s low-paid work nobody wants, so we offer our services through the regular channels for Hospital volunteers. We ask most recruits to try it, during offshifts if they’re currently employed, because it promotes comprehension of our goals.”

“That’s okay by me. What’s the job?”

“Stasis vault attendant.”

“Good God. I suppose it’s a matter of ‘acknowledge and accept our fears’?” Such a demand fit the Group’s uncompromising policy of facing reality, certainly.

“For some, it is,” Peter agreed. “But you’d be surprised, Jess—many of our recruits haven’t the sense to be horrified by the idea. People who grow up in this colony have an idealized picture of happy eternal sleep. Pictures of the Vaults are never published, you see. Only those who’ve been into them know the reality. Your route to us was not typical, after all. We do most of our recruiting among people attracted to the paranormal, and we steer them into vault work before commitment, often even before approaching them. The shock is sometimes what starts them questioning Med policy.”

“Well, it won’t be a shock to me,” Jesse said. “I saw the stasis deck on an old starship at the Fleet academy. Of course that’s not the same—stasis for space travel was once necessary for colonization. The people placed in those units expected to wake, and nearly all of them did. But it doesn’t take much imagination for me to picture vaults full of dead bodies.”

“I realize you don’t need the experience for the same reason most of our people do,” Peter said. “For you, though, simply working in the Hospital—”

“Yes,” Jesse said, chilled. “There’s that.” Peter was too good at his profession not to be aware that he hadn’t been planning to go anywhere near the place.