The Wilding

The planets, such few as were populated, were governed in small bits: continents and islands, plateaus and plains, each with its own master, each with its own laws. The moons which were pressed into service had rarely been zeymoformed, being more often than not barren spheres sprinkled with tiny stations, each paying regular bribes to some pirate band or local chieftain in order to safeguard its existence. The ships which plied the trade lanes were mostly private transports from the Empire, reoutfitted for a variety of duties. Even the stations that dotted the stellar reaches were small, bits and pieces of hardware cobbled together as time and necessity dictated, in a region where sophisticated building supplies were scarce and the machines required for interstellar construction even scarcer.

Yet in the depths of the Azeaside darkness there was one exception to this rule. Varozha Station represented the closest thing to a cooperative effort that existed at the frontier. Or so all the locals said. Approaching it on public transport—a sad little vessel that had once been some rich Azean’s star yacht, now pressed into dirtier service where Azeans did not deign to travel—Zara tried to be impressed. Certainly by Outland standards it was grand enough, a sprawling station with several public docks and a host of private ones. Never mind that the parts of the station didn’t quite match up, in scale or in style . . . as if someone had tried to assemble a picture from pieces of all different puzzles, Zara thought. Never mind that the identicodes near the docks had gone unpainted for so long that passing stellar dust had all but scoured them clean. Never mind that its nodes and rings had been assembled in seemingly random array, and the cost to maintain proper gravity in each must have been astronomical. For the Outlands it was impressive.

Zara watched the approach through the tiny window of her tiny cabin. Even from here she could feel the minds of her fellow passengers pressing in on her. Yes, she knew now, that’s what they were. All the thoughts and emotions crowding her brain that seemed to come from nowhere . . . that’s what they were. Other people’s thoughts. The pressure never stopped. Other people’s hates and fears, punctuated by random sparks of gentler emotions, which burned her brain like warm compresses burned frostbite. Sometimes when she had physical distance from other people it would quiet down a bit—like now—but that only worked so long as no one was experiencing any intense emotion. As soon as someone did it would come stabbing through her, ripping through all the safeguards she was trying so desperately to erect.

Day by day she struggled against the onslaught, believing in her soul that there must be some way to shut out the terrible flow. But if there was, she didn’t know how to do it. Night after night she trembled in the grips of other people’s nightmares. She was gaunt from the stress of the constant battle, and the image which gazed back at her from the mirror field, when she dared to look at it, seemed to be that of a stranger. Could so much of her have changed, in so short a time? It seemed like decades since she had left the Star Empire, and yet in that small part of her brain which was still functioning, she knew it was only days. Many days, to be sure, and each one an eternity in its own right, but not yet enough of them to add up to any sum which others would recognize as meaningful.

Now there was hope. Such a small hope. One name, whispered in the shadows of a bar by someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. “Go find the Shamisi,” he’d told her. Glancing both ways as he did so, as if afraid someone would overhear. “Start looking there.”

At first she thought he had meant some other race that had connections with the psychics. Or maybe some political organization. Then she’d seen the concert ad. Sweetest Voice in a Thousand Systems, it had cajoled. Performing for Five Vesuvian Days Only. And above that all, in big block letters: THE SHAMISI AT VAROZHA STATION.

So now she was here. Coming to see some Scattered Races singer whose professional name was never voiced without an article. Bone tired, brain weary, Zara was dreading the mere concept of arriving in a public place, much less a crowded one . . . but she was determined to follow up the one solid clue she’d been given. So many people just gave her a blank stare when she asked about the psychics, or worse yet, turned on her as if the very question had been an offense. This man had at least seemed to know something. Whether or not that something would be of any use to her had yet to be seen. But at least she had somewhere to go now. Some clue to follow. Maybe this one would send her in the right direction, toward people who could help her protect herself from the continual alien onslaught. Toward her sister, who had been claimed by them so long ago.

Don’t think about that, she told herself stubbornly. Reminding herself of what her mother had told her, so long ago. Live day by day. Face your problems one by one. You’ll get through them, if you don’t let them get to you first.

The concert station itself was impressive even by Imperial standards. A display by the entrance explained that a consortium of traders had built the place originally, in order to serve as a cultural center for Outlands society. If Zara had any questions about why, they were dispelled when she passed over her final Imperial Credits for conversion and payment. Whatever the Shamisi was, she exacted a price that performers in the Star Empire would envy. Five performances only, declared glowing words that hung above the portal.

The machine at the main portal processed her money and gave her a small chip. She looked at it curiously, not grasping what its purpose was until, two doors down, she had to insert it to gain entrance to the main promenade. How bizarre. In the Empire they would just have taken a surface scan of her DNA and used that to verify the purchase later. But of course that meant that the local computers would know who she was, and when she had arrived. Outlanders were notoriously hostile toward the concept of anyone tracking them.

The “promenade” turned out to be a series of elevated walkways that twisted and crossed through a vast open space, filled with fake plants and floating sculptures. She could hardly negotiate it with a thousand alien thoughts pounding in her head, and for a moment thought she wasn’t going to make it. Move it, Chandran, or we’ll all be late! Somewhere a child was screaming because it was hungry, and its cries reverberated in her brain. Someone else was cursing a fellow traveler for having caused them to have poor seats for the concert . . . or maybe only thinking that loudly. Zara could hardly tell any more; the inner voices had become so loud it was impossible to distinguish mental voices from real ones.

The concert hall itself was quieter, a minor blessing. Minds were settling down in expectation, their normal buzz muted as they prepared themselves to receive the performance. Thank the gods. She eased down into her formseat with a weary sigh, feeling it adjust itself to her contours. The mechanism was overworn and didn’t quite get the shape right, but it was better than nothing. Zara shut her eyes and pretended she was out in the black reaches of space alone, with not another human mind nearby. Which was very likely where she would have to go, if she couldn’t find some help soon.

There was a human girl on the stage, who waited silently until all eyes were upon her, without moving. She was small and young and not prepossessing in either her person or her dress. A tiny girl with plain, straight hair that hung down to her waist, and almond eyes that were not nearly as large or appealing as they might have been. Her dress was a simple sheath of blue-gray shimmersilk that changed color slightly as she finally moved, shifting her weight, but never did anything dramatic. Plain and lovely, suitable for a nightshift on the town . . . but decidedly underdressed for the Outland’s preeminent diva. Was this the Shamisi? Was her talent so great that showmanship was not an issue? Zara found herself fascinated by the girl’s almost hesitant presence, so utterly unsuitable for the grand stage of . . . well, anything. She reminded Zara of the gentler browsing beasts of her home planet, that would startle at the sound of anyone approaching and bound for cover. If one of them had been molded into human form and given a nice dress, it might have looked like this.

The girl approached center stage and then simply began to sing, without preamble or introduction. Like her physical presence the music was unimpressive, almost mundane. Her voice was pleasant, a liquid soprano, but it was hardly in a class to justify the usurious price of attendance. Were the Outlands so starved for entertainment that they had fantasized her greatness? Zara looked about the audience, mystified. The man sitting next to her caught her eye and grinned. “First time?” he whispered. “Give it a few, you’ll see.”

The first song was a simple ballad in the Ikna style, something about lost love. It was hard to make out the words at first—the girl sang it in a strange dialect that Zara had never heard before, probably some Outland construct—but as she relaxed, as she let the soft voice sink into her skin, the words became clearer. Or perhaps not the words themselves, but at least the story behind them. Something about a pair of lovers who took jobs on distant planets for a while, trying to save up the resources to be together forever. Their hunger to be together, the joyful certainty that separation was but a temporary necessity, rang clear through the music, and Zara found herself remembering relationships she had treasured and lost, remembering how precious each had seemed in its heyday. The words were simple and the voice that sang them was quiet, but somehow in combination they stirred her memories.

It wasn’t until the end of the first piece that she realized she had been so drawn into the music that for the first time in many days she had not been aware of the minds surrounding her. That for a brief time there had been only music—no pain, no fear, no gut-wrenching despair. Nothing but the girl’s soft voice, the music that cradled it, and the stories she wove.

Zara drew in a breath softly, slowly, trying to understand what had happened. The man who had talked to her before glanced over, saw her expression, and grinned. “Ah . . . y’see.” She couldn’t even nod. Now that the music had faded the cacophony of a concert hall full of human minds was starting to press in on her again, twice as painful for her brief respite. If the girl sang again, would it quiet those alien voices? Every cell of her body was on edge, straining to know. Please tell me it wasn’t my imagination, she begged silently.

The next song was a haunting poem of love and loss, its minor refrain well suited to the Shamisi’s young voice. After a moment Zara just shut her eyes and let the music seep into her brain without interference from other sensory input. It was like a warm ocean tide, gentle but insistent, bearing away all the sands of consciousness and leaving clear pools of serenity in their wake. Now there was no sense of Other surrounding her, none at all, only ripples of emotion that spread out from each note, lapping against the walls of her consciousness. Yes, love was like that. Yet, loss was exactly that, velvet and bittersweet pain. Bits and pieces of verse floated through her awareness, not truly connected to the music, so much as borne upon its tide.

When that song faded Zara held onto the final note as long as she could. A lifeline to sanity. What was this girl, that she could have such an effect on her? Even when the minds surrounding her began their invasive murmuring once more, it seemed to her it was softer than before. Less distracting. Was that something real, or her own desperate imagination? Did this girl really have some power that could alter her mind, healing the internal wounds enough that random thoughts no longer stung her in passing—

The next song began before she could process the thought any further. This was a ballad of ancient adventure, set in a time and place when bloodshed was a personal matter, swords against flesh as opposed to energies against starships. The Shamisi drew her audience into it slowly, beginning the performance with little more than a whisper as she described the verdant meadows of the first scene. Then a forest’s shady sway, silently ominous, surrounding. If she sat back and relaxed Zara could feel the presence of rain-dampened foliage around her, and could sense the tragedy in the making. Were all the others feeling these things so acutely, she wondered? Or were her own fledgling psychic senses colluding with the girl’s innate power to draw her further into the music than most could go? There was no way to know for sure, and as the song progressed she cared less and less about trying. There was the heroine, her beauty a crystal waterfall in the soul. There was the hero, whose strength set human nerves to humming. There was the enemy, a monster, a dark minor chord that reverberated in one’s very soul, like a fear rising out of the hindbrain, threatening to swallow all hope—

The end of the song left her gasping. After a while she raised a shaking hand to her face and realized that tears had been running down her cheeks. Her soul felt like a sponge that had been wrung dry of water, now thirsting for the next precious drop. All about her she could see people stirring, but she no longer needed to look at them to know what they were feeling. Yes, the music had moved them, but not as powerfully as it had done for her. Not so powerfully that they would look at the girl and call her talent by its proper name. For them there would still be the euphemisms polite society used to hold at bay that which was alien, frightening. Emotive brilliance. Powerful phrasing. Fusion of alien vocal styles. . . .

Except it wasn’t really about any of that, was it? You didn’t know that if you were merely human, because you couldn’t sense the full range of what that music was carrying. But Zara knew. Zara’s mind was an open wound, and the girl’s emotions had poured into it, and even as she trembled in fear and wonder she knew what the proper label for that was.

The singer was psychic. Her music, her voice, it was all just a vehicle for that forbidden talent. Disguising it so that the common public would not know. Diluting it into doses they could absorb without trauma. Controlling them, without their knowing they were being controlled.

When the final number ended the concert hall was silent for a small eternity. And then the applause began, and the cries of adulation, and with them a wave of emotion from all the minds surrounding Zara. Following upon the peace she had tasted so fleetingly, the volume of it was enough to make her physically ill. She stood up and managed somehow to convey to the people nearest her that she wanted to leave before the crowd was done showing its appreciation. They let her go by. She caught their thoughts as she pressed past them, spearpoints of emotion that stabbed into her soul. Ungrateful chit . . . utterly rude . . . insult to a great performer . . . At last she was free and she stumbled into the promenade, swallowing back on the hot bile that had risen in her throat. That’s how it would be again, when the Shamisi was gone. That’s how it would be for her whole life, if she couldn’t make contact with her, or if the girl wouldn’t help her.

The applause began to die down, and with it the mental focus of the audience began to disperse. In moments the rest of the crowd would be emerging and she would be overwhelmed again. Desperately she looked for some exit that would lead to a back corridor, some place the common public was not meant to go. She had to find her way backstage to where the Shamisi would be, but she couldn’t take the same route all the fans would be taking. Their minds would swallow her whole.

She chose the only door that did not fade automatically as she approached, and opened it manually. It closed behind her even as people began to emerge from the concert hall, shutting out the sound of them with a force field’s certain soundproofing. The corridor she had entered was clearly meant for workers, and lacked all the embellishments of the public spaces. Good enough.

She followed her instincts, trusting to the gods of all the human worlds that somehow she could sense where the Shamisi was, and instinct would lead her there. Several turns and several portals brought her around to the back of the stage; the few workmen who passed her raised eyebrows or curled antennae to see her there, but no one bothered to stop her. That was the Mediator’s art, always looking like you belonged where you were, so that no one questioned your presemce. Even in her current state it didn’t fail her.

At last she came to a busier area. Her heart racing, she followed the sound of mental chatter to join the people who were already gathered there. Stagehands, mostly, muttering technical jargon as they shut down the systems that had been used during the performance. There didn’t seem to be any members of the common public about, or any open space where they might attend upon the object of their adoration. Zara took a quick breath and then squeezed her way past the technicians, ignoring random thoughts that strayed in her direction. Right now she was focused on one thing only, and the opinion of a stagehand about her right to be here—or even her breast size—was of little concern.

At last she came to a security portal guarded by a human sentinel. She didn’t need insight into his thoughts to know what was beyond that door; his posture said it all. Mustering all the courage she could, she walked up to his post as though it were the most natural place in the world for her to be, and said to him in a voice that was utterly, professionally calm, “I’m here to see the Shamisi.”

She felt the Mediator’s mask slip from her face for a moment, letting a glimpse of her real emotions show. It took effort to choke out the words with any semblance of dignity. “Please. I have to talk to her.” If she told him the truth, would it matter? If she told him that her sanity was frayed to the breaking point, and this young girl was the first sign of hope she’d had since her spiral downwards into madness had begun—that if she couldn’t talk to her she didn’t know where to turn next, or if she even had the strength to leave this place—would that matter? She choked back on the words and the tears that would surely follow them, not yet willing to sink to those depths. “Gaston sent me,” she said at last, citing the name of the one who had told her to seek the performer. It didn’t look like the name meant anything to him. Nor did the trembling in her voice seem to affect him at all. For one brief, mad moment she wondered if she could move him out of her way by force. Surely it was better to attempt such folly and fail than to simply give up, when hope was so close she could taste it.

“She doesn’t see anyone after performances,” the guard told her. His voice was neither harsh nor sympathetic, simply the bland communicative tool of someone doing his job. “No fans, no reporters, no nothing. I’m sorry. Those are the rules, she doesn’t break them for anyone.”

The black eyes fixed on her. For a moment there was a strange sense of vertigo, a sense of something indefinable sweeping past her. A shadow, a ghost. She grasped at it with all her mental strength, willing it to taste the full extent of her fear, her desperation. Please help me, she begged. I have nowhere else to go.

With a short grunt the man reached into his jacket and drew out a wafer-thin data chip. “Five Standard Days,” he said shortly. “When the concert’s all over, that’s when she handles business. You come here”—he tapped the chip against an open palm, then offered it to her—“She’ll talk to you.”

“It’s a one-shot,” he warned her. Surprised, she looked into his eyes as if for some kind of explanation, but he offered none, and his expression was unreadable. One-shot chips were commonly used in handling illicit information, where you didn’t want any trace of it hanging around as evidence. They played one time and then erased themselves. If you tried to copy them they would fry any equipment they were running on. She’d had that happen to her once as Mediator, and had never forgotten it.

She turned to go back the way she had come, but a grunt from the guard drew her attention back to him. He was pointing another way, across the backstage area and up a flight of stairs. “You’ll beat most of the crowd that way.” A dry smile twisted his lips. “It’s where the rich ones exit.”

She nodded gratitude for the tip and headed in that direction. Even from this distance she could sense the murmur of the concert crowd, caught in the inevitable bottleneck of the exit. The thought of diving into that mass of humanity and nonhumanity, with all its mental exudations, made her feel faint inside. Hopefully upstairs the situation wouldn’t be as bad.

Did he know that was a concern for her? she wondered. No way to know now. But in five days’ time she would be able to ask that . . . and many things. Her hand closed about the chip as if it was the most precious thing in civilized space to her. And wasn’t it? Was there anything in her world that mattered more, right now?

The stairs led up to a sweeping veranda, floored in copper faux-marble veined in grey and black. Most of the patrons had left already, and it was a relief to come a place where there were few people about. She paused by the head of a golden balustrade to draw in a deep breath, trying to shut the distant clamor of strangers’ thoughts out of her mind. Five days. You can make it that long. One at a time, girl. Once she got off Verozha Station she could hire transport to some hovel of a hotel that was off by itself in the starlanes, and buy herself five days of solitude. It wasn’t a luxury she’d been able to allow herself during her search, but now that she knew there was an end to searching . . . or at least a signpost to help plan the next phase of it . . . she could spare a few days to be alone, and to nurse her wounded soul.

Feeling more hope than she had in days, she followed a series of discreet signs pointing to the visitors’ docks. A few people passed her, murmuring affluent knots of humanity, gathered like herdbeasts about their most vulnerable members. Glittering women in shimmersilk gowns and men in robes of sleek silverskin, flanked by husky bodyguards from some hi-gravity world who scanned the entire area before letting their precious charges emerge. Wealth was a risky thing in the Outlands, and few men or women of substance would travel without a contingent of bodyguards.

The main walkway took her to an exit portal that shimmered prettily as she passed through it, wasting energy in a last display to please the patrons. From this direction she’d be passing the private bays first, a luxury the wealthy paid dearly for, but eventually she should come out near public transportation. A sharp turn revealed the first of the small docks, each rented for the shift by a particular family or charter group. Most of the patrons had already left, and viewscreens overhead showed dozens of ships already in transit, weaving their way through a crowded periphery to the open blackness of space beyond. A few of the portals were still unsealed, allowing her to peek in as she passed. Bodyguards hustled their charges into tiny vessels as the pilots made a final check of astrogation and force field control. Their thoughts were so focused she was hardly aware of them. Families gathered at entrances, smoothing glittering clothes as the solid hull doors opened for them—

The portal before her was open. Inside the dock she could see a few figures moving toward a small vessel, whose pristine, gleaming hull proclaimed wealth in quantity, as well as the desire to show it off. Ostentation was rare in the Outlands, which spoke volumes for the owner’s importance . . . or perhaps for his foolishness.

The feeling was sudden, a hot wave of dread that washed over her body and was gone before she even knew its name. It was like what she had felt in the Mediation chamber, right before the bomb had gone off. And yet . . . no. Not a bomb. She knew that somehow. Knew that the thoughts which had just reached out and stabbed her in the gut had nothing to do with explosions and killing. But something bad. She knew that.

But she couldn’t. Curiosity warred with fear inside her, the desperate need to understand what she was feeling balanced against the gut certainty that it heralded trouble. In the end, by a fraction, the former emotion won out. She felt her legs move, bringing her through the portal and into the dock itself. A guard looked up with a warning hiss and pulled some kind of weapon on her; she didn’t even recognize its type. Two guards, she noticed. One small teenage girl. Daughter of somebody important, no doubt. Or at least somebody rich.

And then the door of a transport cube split open, hissing protest at being forced so suddenly. A dark figure lunged for the small ship and was between it and the guards before any of them could come about. He held some weapon Zara had never seen before and he fired one, two, three, four shots, even as the guards turned toward him—

The girl screamed. Her fear broke over Zara with the force of a tidal wave, leaving her reeling. She tried to put one foot in front of the other and stumbled, just in time for some sort of projectile to whiz over her head. Portal, portal, find the portal . . . But something hit the control panel and sparks flew as the portal sealed itself, closing off the only possible escape.

I’m going to die. The thought wasn’t her own, but a terrified teenage keening, the sudden panicked recognition of mortality as a human state. Oh Hasha I’m sorry dad I shouldn’t have come you were right you were right you were right—

Guards. Pain. Blinding impact. A terrible weight on Zara’s chest that kept her from breathing, but was it her pain or someone else’s? Coughing blood, but nothing came up; it wasn’t hers. Dark figures moving toward her, away. Borders between minds blurred as they caught up the girl, whose shrieks filled the echoing space to capacity, whose mental screams filled Zara’s head to bursting. Oh Gods, whatever you came here for, I don’t know anything about it, please let me go. Maybe in another time and place Zara would have tried to be heroic, but right now it was all she could do not to vomit up all those alien thoughts onto the floor of the dock while they watched.

The girl stopped screaming suddenly. Dead, or just unconscious? Zara felt sickness well up inside her with numbing force and she forced herself to swallow back on it, hard. She wanted to try to stand again, but a red-hot thought from someone else’s brain warned her that if they thought she could fight back they’d kill her on the spot, so she stayed as she was, crouching, trembling.

She didn’t even realize they meant her until two of the black-clad figures grabbed her and jerked her to her feet. I have nothing to do with these people! The scream was trapped behind a lump in her throat; she couldn’t get it out. The hands of the men burned as they grabbed her, their flesh a conduit for thoughts as violent and dark as a beast’s. No! No! You don’t understand! Terror flooded her soul in hot, bile-driven waves. Not fear of death, or even of pain . . . fear of suddenly losing the only hope she had left. The sudden terror of being trapped in space with murderers’ thoughts pounding in her brain, while the Shamisi left this place and disappeared into the darkness beyond, never to be found again. I can’t leave here! Terror of being no more than a conduit for other people’s emotions forever—

She struggled. Desperately. But the strong arms held her and dragged her toward the ship, and when at last she annoyed them enough with her struggles they struck her across the back of the head, twice. Professional blows, just enough to drive her down into darkness . . . and into a pit of blissful silence where finally, mercifully, even the fear was extinguished.