TEN
RAGE. ALL ABOUT her. Rage in the air so thick she can choke on it. Rage like fire in her heart, searing the blood that shoots through her veins. Rage clashing and reverberating throughout the house, until the screeching discordancy is near to deafening her.
One chance. That’s all she’ll give him. One last chance.
She waits at the door with patience. Of course. Always patient, that’s her hallmark. He’s used to her being calm, always calm . . . no matter what he does. No matter what her rage screams inside for her to do. This time the calm is false, a mask meant to hide other things, but she doubts he will notice that. Or care.
The portal finally fades, triggered from within.
He looks up from a holo he’s been playing with, some ridiculous mock-military game that gets more attention than his family these days. Gritting her teeth, she waits to see how he will greet her. One last chance, she tells herself. The rage is hot inside her, battering at the gates of her spirit, but she wields the words like a mantra, fighting to keep it controlled. One final chance.
His eyes narrow, his ear tips flaring in an expression she knows too well. He stands, his expression dark, and the rage in his voice stokes the fire in her soul to even greater heights.
“Where in the human hells have you been?” he demands.
“Out,” she says curtly. Giving no ground.
The rage is building in him, she can feel it. Fire calling to fire, stoking her own hidden furnace.
“I don’t like not knowing where you are.”
She shrugs. The motion feels surreal, as if her body isn’t really her own. A stranger talking to her mate. A stranger who will be struck by him. She starts to walk past him, toward the bedroom. He rounds the couch quickly and gets in her way.
Just touch me, she thinks. Touch me now, go ahead, I am ready for you—
“Not good enough,” he growls.
She shrugs again, her heart pounding. The secret which is hidden up her left sleeve is hot, sharp, ready to explode into motion.
“Did you hear me?” He grabs her by the arm, pressing hard enough to leave bruises. “I said, not good enough—”
And the hand which belongs to somebody else moves forward, slow motion like in an entertainment holo, so that she can savor every moment. Left arm moving forward, spilling the knife out of her sleeve. Right arm moving forward, catching it, turning it, twisting it upward oh so slowly, painfully slowly. Rage like a bonfire devouring her flesh as she thrusts the knife into him, under the rib cage, tearing upward toward the heart. She can feel the tissue parting, hear the muscle screaming in protest as it is ripped asunder. Somewhere in the distance he yells, but she’s not listening any more. The music of his death is so much more meaningful, red droplets pattering percussion on her skin as the rage plays its tune upon his heart—
Zara sat up in her bed, trembling. For a moment the room seemed to swim around her and it was hard to bring it into focus. She drew a few deep breaths and fixed her eyes on one piece of furniture, trying to make it stand still. After a few moments, it did. The rest of the room eventually stopped moving as well, though the edges of it still shimmered in time to the pounding of her heart.
By all the gods of humanity, what’s happening to me?
Her hand still shook from the force of twisting the knife blade into a man’s flesh; the sweet smell of human blood was thick in her nostrils. If she shut her eyes the fires of that terrible hatred might come roaring to life again inside her . . . and so she kept her eyes open, and turned on the light, and sat upright in bed, fearing the very thought of sleep.
Zara was used to bad dreams. When your job required that you take center stage in major cultural conflicts, and sometimes you were the only hope that alien entities had for peace and prosperity, bad dreams were normal. It was the price of success, a teacher had once told her. He’d had some convoluted theory about how the nightmares were a manifestation of the secret inner guilt all Mediators bore for having the kind of insight which could lay bare the secrets of their clients. Zara thought it was just stress. Stress, and the utterly reasonable fear that a single wrong word might prove a catalyst of the wrong sort, and trigger a cascade of mistakes that would end in some horrible disaster.
It even said it in her school files: All the great Mediators have nightmares.
But the dreams she’d had back then, in the comfortable regularity of her former life, were as different from her current dreams as fire and ice. Back then she had dreamed about the minutiae of her job gone horribly wrong. Failure to interpret an alien language properly, leading to disaster. Failure to anticipate a burst of hostility, leading to violence. The simple burden of having a job with so little margin for error, upon which so many people depended, and then failing to do it properly. Textbook fears. Intellectual terrors.
Now . . . now the dreams were different. Darker. Not about her own life, any more, but bits and pieces of alien experience. As if in her sleep she became someone else, a creature of alien motivation and passionate, terrifying emotions. Once or twice, when she awakened, she wasn’t even sure who she was anymore. Just for a moment. But those moments terrified her.
Was she going insane? Was this what insanity felt like? She didn’t know. There was no one to turn to and ask. She’d started to call her mother once, but had stopped before the augmented connection could be established. What was she going to say to her? What could her mother possibly say that would help? She hadn’t even had the courage to tell her own daughter her history; what was there to indicate she’d be any more communicative now, if told that her daughter was slowly going mad?
She had the Kevesi sequence in her genes. That was a psychic thing. Didn’t the psychics normally go insane, as they got older? What if she’d inherited that tendency, and the accident had somehow triggered it, so that it was finally expressing? How much time did she have left, if that was the case?
Her sister would know. Her sister had been kidnapped by the psychics, had probably lived with them for years now. She’d know the rules.
But how to find her?
It’s a large galaxy, she thought as she wended her way from planet to planet, from station to station. Always heading outward, away from civilization’s core, into the unknown reaches where it was said the psychics were hidden. And I don’t even know where to start.
One thing was certain. She would not find the answer in the Star Empire, or in any space that Azea controlled. And so . . . beyond the borders she went, past the point where Azean law held sway, into the political maelstrom that lay beyond. Hoping against hope that there would be a sign of her sister somewhere out there, or of the people who had abducted her. Praying she did not go insane before finding it.
Kevesi Sequence, the library file said. Among humans, a series of codons believed to be linked to the development of psychic sensitivity. While the Kevesi Sequence has proven a useful predictor of psychic potential in most Scattered Races, by itself it does not guarantee the actual expression of such power. As of yet the genetic and environmental factors which trigger the so-called Awakening are not fully understood. Exploration of this question was the primary mission of Llornu’s Institute for the Acceleration of Human Psychic Evolution, whose charter set forth the primary goal of isolating the necessary codes and then introducing them into the Azean race as a whole. With the destruction of the Institute’s homeworld the project was abandoned, and it is believed that most of the original research was lost. The Kevesi Sequence is known to be linked to several genes which control the chemical development of the brain, for which reason genetic alteration of the Sequence is considered a high-risk procedure and is not advised for either inwomb or early-life genetic manipulation. No direct link to mental instability has been proven; however, given the known tie between psychic sensitivity and insanity there are many scientists who believe that such a link exists, and that only the lack of opportunity for experimentation since the fall of Llornu has kept it from being discovered to date. See also: Imperial Guidelines for Prenatal/Postnatal Genetic Manipulation.
Emotions. Crashing into her like waves on an ocean shore, dragging her out into an undertow of hunger and pain. Fear/running/shame. Loneliness/lust/despair. Loss/ anger/searching/failure. Emotions that didn’t seem to have anything to do with her current experience . . . as if the floodgates within her mind had just been ripped open, and random emotions were pouring through. No longer contained within dreams, but slipping into her waking world. First a word, then a thought . . . then a tidal wave washing over her. Terror/loss/screaming/screaming/ screaming! Emotions cresting in her brain and then withdrawing for a time, but only long enough for the next wave to take shape. Faster and faster, they came now. More of them each day, until she barely had time to settle her mind between them. No place, no time was safe.
What if there was a medical problem at the root of all of it? Chemical imbalances could skew the mind, as could various diseases and deformities. Hasha alone knew what the accident might have done to her; some microscopic brain damage that had gone undiscovered, perhaps, but which now was blossoming into a major threat to her sanity. But she was afraid to get a medscan to find out. Any physician she consulted would surely discover the government block on her records, and then . . . who could say what would come of that, here in independent space? Every man for himself—wasn’t that the credo of the so-called Outlands? What if her physician decided the information was worth something to someone, more than she could pay him?
The paranoia was real, at least. Her own emotions. A life raft of familiarity to cling to, in a vast ocean where all else was unknown.
She could no longer read people as she used to. All the gestures and expressions and fine shadings of vocal tone that had once been so clear to her were drowned in that alien ocean, as was her ability to focus on . . . well, anything. It was getting hard to think clearly at all, much less focus upon anyone else. Everything she had been in her life was gone, every skill she had taken for granted was lost to her, drowned out in that relentless tide. Had they known this would happen to her? Is this what had been on her secret medfile, the parts that were sealed away from public view? Is this why they had wanted her to leave her job . . . so she could fall to pieces in private?
In all of her years doing Mediation in war zones, in all of her work between hate-filled rivals, political adversaries, even trigger-happy terrorists . . . she had never been as afraid as this. Never been afraid of something inside herself, rather than a threat from without.
Never been as afraid to give it a name.
You know what it is, an inner voice whispered. You don’t want to know, but you do.
NO!
Turn to face me—yes that’s it—turn to face me and see who I am—yes there’s the light—see my face—see the hate—such hate twisting me I can feel it twisting my soul until it screams for your death—there’s the blade, remember it? Ritual knife scored symbols etched in blade and handle running red with blood your blood—hate dances hot in my brain stupid fool did you think I didn’t know? Ikna god of destruction drinks your blood and I laugh and I dance and the ostra bellows and I dance in its blood too all the world is filled with hate and joy—
A bar on Orknea. Somewhere. Maybe not Orknea. The planets and stations were all running together now, details lost as her mind overloaded.
Newscasts were running overhead, volume low. Sometimes a waiter passed through them and they played on his skin momentarily, a mobile tattoo. News from the Empire. News from the Outlands. Sensationalistic reports, mostly, meant to entertain rather than inform. Outlanders seemed to have a taste for violence.
The graphic content of such reports might have upset her, once. Now . . . mere pictures meant nothing. She had far worse images running in her brain day and night. Even the laughter of drunken locals that accompanied any image of disaster from inside the Empire didn’t bother her much any more. The Empire was hated here. All megalithic governments were hated here. The Outlanders valued their freedom to speak their mind, raise genetically inferior children, and laugh at the misfortune of others. Braxi, Azea, they’re all the same. A bar-keeper had said that, while offering her a drink laced with drugs that would have been illegal in either territory. Governments gotten out of hand, using the law like a choke leash. To hells with them. To the violence raging on the newscast he simply would have shrugged and said, Freedom has its price.
She watched with a shiver as the newscast moved from tragedy to tragedy, its voyeuristic scan savoring each sensationalistic detail. To her it seemed surreal, almost comforting, images without emotion. If only the pictures in her head were like that. Maybe in time she would learn to distance herself from them, so that she could watch them unfold with a stranger’s detachment. Not my emotion. Not my problem. But wasn’t that itself a kind of insanity?
Then the image before her changed, and she stiffened in her seat.
MURDER IN BETA STATION RING NINE, the holo announced. Pictures flashed one after the other in the air before her, bodies and blood and—
A knife.
MOTIVE UNKNOWN, it continued.
Closeup on the blade. Crusted blood seeping into finely etched lines, a delicate scrimshaw of horror.
ARTIFACT STOLEN FROM NUMASNI’S MUSEUM FIVE LOCAL DAYS AGO . . .
Hasha. She knew that design. She had seen it when it the blood was fresh, had watched as tendrils of crimson dripped down the handle. Her dream.
Was it a dream?
. . . BELIEVED TO BE DEDICATED TO THE IKNA GOD OF DESTRUCTION. ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN THIS CRIME IS UNKNOWN BUT INVESTIGATORS SUSPECT—
She fell back, as the picture changed again, stumbling against the slender table until it toppled, spilling its drinks across the floor. “Hey!” An Artuzi sitting near her moved out of the way as she nearly fell into him . . . her eyes seeing nothing but the holocast, which even now was widening to include the whole of the crime scene: bloodied imprint of a body, investigator’s tag where the knife had been lying, and the gutted corpse of what must once have been a favored pet—
An ostra. By all of the human hells, an ostra. She remembered it bellowing in fear and rage as its master died, remembered the feel of its flesh against the knife blade and fear pouring out with the blood—
No! I wasn’t there! It didn’t happen!
The room was crowded and her flight sent her stumbling into one patron after another. As she touched each one, emotion stabbed into her with stunning force. Fragments of other lives, shrapnel of human suffering.
not going to take one more day of it
damned if I’ll back down
who does she think she is anyway
ought to show him what I think
if he leaves I’ll die
(hatred!)
(despair!)
(longing!)
(loneliness!)
(fury!)
Out into the corridor. Someone yelling something about a bill she had to pay but she couldn’t stop. What if the police came? What if someone official grabbed hold of her and she drowned in his emotion, all the repressed violence that went with such a job—
Other people’s emotions, an inner voice whispered.
No!
Tears poured down her face as she ran through the visitor’s ring. Several people reached toward her but something in her expression must have scared the hells out of them. Blood on her hands. Ostra trumpeting in terror. Someone else’s hate in her brain. No no no no no!
At last she got to the room she had rented and she sealed the portal with trembling hands once, twice, three times over, stabbing at the mechanism until her fingers were raw. Then she leaned against the door, sobbing, and slid down slowly to the floor, all the strength leached from her limbs.
You know what it is, the inner voice whispered. It sounded like her mother’s. You know what’s going on.
“No,” she sobbed.
Other people’s emotions. Other people’s memories. Other people’s pain.
She had no more strength for denial. Head bowed, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms about them, trembling. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m not psychic. I can’t be. It doesn’t happen to adults.”
How much do they really know about how it happens? Or why?
In the distance a couple was fighting. Their anger overlaid a wave of sexual hunger from the floor beneath. Sorrow pressed down on her from overhead, stifling, suffocating. And loneliness—so much loneliness!—loneliness from all sides of her, that universal essence of humanity which comes of being trapped in a shell of flesh, unable to reach out to others with more than words or simple touch—
Only she could. Without trying. She could touch them all.
This is why they go crazy, she thought.
The couple below her was having sex. The waves of selfish hunger were rhythmic, penetrating.
How do I stop it? she begged. To her mother, her gods, the unknown, long-lost sister—anyone or anything that might know the answer.
You can’t stop it, the inner voice whispered. Not once it’s started.
Pounding below. Madness within.
She wept.
Think as the enemy thinks, and you will be able to anticipate him.
Want what he wants, and you will learn how to entrap him.
Feel what he feels, and you will know how to seduce him.
—Anzha lyu Mitethe
