Chapter 78

 

Jared

 

 

Issio walked beside him, holding the cage and the mouse. "Is it female?" he asked Issio, feeling curiosity.

Issio nodded. "In case there is an affinity for one gender," he said. "This thing has now three times chosen a female body. They told me," he added, "that the mouse is not pregnant."

And that was a thought Jared had not previously considered, and he would just as soon not consider it now. He wondered if an It-infested creature would produce offspring already infected, or only very vulnerable to such possession. He wondered if an It could take over an unborn child, not, considering Sofi and Shamri, something he wanted to believe possible.

Clena and Wundra were on duty in Clyde's bedroom, noters and bottles and readers and bags and tubes and infusers on all available surfaces, and the hospital bed in the middle of the floor. Mimi lay on it; her wrists and ankles were tied to the bed frame. Her eyes were closed and she breathed steadily and slowly, as one asleep. Clyde sat in the straight chair beside the bed with a hand on her nearest arm; he looked up at Jared and Issio with a mixture of hope and apprehension. He got up to make room for them.

Issio cleared a spot on the small end table just out of reach of the patient in the bed, and put the cage with the white mouse on it, and watched, without any appearance of high expectations, as Maud and Chazaerte and Lalia and Carter and Zarei filed into the room. Chazaerte and Zarei moved toward the back window, and Maud and Carter took up a position by the door, as if on guard; Jared thought of Carter batting an escaping fly back into the bedroom, and after a brief hesitation he saw, from Carter's point of view, himself, Jared, snatching the fly out of the air and poking her into the mouth of a disgusted-looking mouse. He glanced at Carter, and found him examining the edges of the ceiling with great attention.

Cara hugged Clyde silently; he hugged her back, and then she moved up next to Jared. Mimi slept, this time without moving.

Lalia took up a position beside Issio. On the porch, the D'ubians and Terry began to play something soft and melodic. Jared caught a glimpse of Louise, sitting with Clena and Wundra on the end of the bed in the living room.

Jared looked over the bed at Issio. "Hocus Pocus," he said, and Issio twitched his tail.

"Indeed," he said, and put his hand on Mimi's head. Jared did the same, on the other side. He saw again the shadows of her mind, the tangled brambles that prevented entry into her thoughts; things moved back there, behind the thorns, the things he needed to reach.

Also Mimi is there, Issio reminded him. He wondered where exactly she was – inside screaming like a virgin, the fly had told him back in his bedroom when she rose naked out of his bed – and he wondered if they could get rid of the fly without hurting her, too.

Lalia came up beside Issio and reached to touch Mimi's face. Jared glanced at Maud, who was watching him thoughtfully, and at Cara, standing beside him, and he looked across at Issio again, and then he took a breath and plunged in.

 

The brambles made him think once more of a fairy tale, an enchanted princess sleeping in her spell-bound castle as thorny bushes grew up all around to protect her and drive away all intruders but her princely true love. The thorns he faced here suggested that he was not Mimi's true love, which of course was true. It ought to be Clyde, but Clyde couldn't go here; Jared knew that. And none of them were the fly's true love either, if she had one.

He could hear, distantly, the music, a thread of music, like a string being laid out behind them to show them the way back.

He paused at the thorny barricade and found Issio and Lalia both beside him, looking for a way. We cannot break through, Issio said. We could not break through before. We need to be stronger. Lalia reached back toward the thread of music and Jared felt a current of power coming in, a current running from behind them into their – well, their minds, although he saw them as the bodies he was accustomed to. He could even see Issio's grey black body hair fluffing, bushing as the power seeped into him.

His hands felt stronger; he put them on the nearest twisted branch and it bent under his pressure but it didn't break. Remembering his earlier venture into the mind of the fly, he thought about power saws; beside him Issio was trying a saw of his own. He forced his way through the nearest branch and Jared tried his saw; it worked, but very slowly. Making a hole through this thicket would take a great deal of time. He reached for the next branch; beyond he could see light, something like sunlight, and things moving.

The music wandered around them. An ax, said Lalia, and in her hands appeared one of the silver D'ubian hatchets; she swung it and broke through several branches in a wild swipe.

That's better, Jared said to Issio, and he saw his power saw melt into a silver hatchet; Issio nodded and gripped his own ax, and it hacked through the next branch, widening the passage. Jared swung his ax next to Lalia's, clearing small branches out of the way. They weren't real, he thought; the thorns didn't scratch him, didn't tear his clothing. But it was still hard work, almost physically hard, for the three of them to open up a space in the barricade. It was only a small hole, but Jared wasn't willing to wait any longer; he pushed his way through, with Issio right behind him.

There was light, and then it resolved into something like a grassy meadow, with a muted sun low in a pale sky. Jared had time to wonder if this was a construct of his own mind, Issio's, Lalia's, Mimi's, and then he saw the movement at the far end of the meadow, things twisting and struggling. There was a slender form, a willowy semi-Earthian silhouette, which turned and shifted in tall grass, and around this form twined something else, something golden bright, a snaky shining parasite intent upon winding itself around the slender one, surrounding her, suffocating her, swallowing her.

Jared touched Issio's arm and nodded at Lalia and pointed, and Issio shot off across the meadow with Jared beside him and Lalia in the rear; the silver hatchets melted away. The meadow was not as wide as it had appeared, and they were there in half a breath. The slender form was bending and shaking and trying to dislodge the thing around her, but she was tired; Jared could see how weak she was becoming. She looked out at them through the entwining darkness and after a moment she seemed to recognize them, and Jared saw the familiar smile and the light in the almond-shaped eyes, although she could hold it for only a second.

Issio laid his hands on the coils around her and pulled; nothing happened, and Jared reached back again, past the barrier, and felt a cable of music, instruments winding about one another, forming a conduit for the power to flow through. With this power Jared grabbed the end of the thing, which was swinging just below Mimi's chin, and he yanked and dislodged it, unwinding at least half a meter of it. Issio's hands clamped down just under his and they pulled together, and Lalia got hold of the tail. It fought back, trying to pull away. Mimi struggled, trying to get arms loose to push from inside the coils. Jared wondered if they could pour any of their strength into her, but he would have to take a hand off the golden body and touch her in order to do that, and he didn't think that was a good idea.

Issio leaned back, hanging on with both hands and pushing with his feet and stretching his head toward the hole in the barricade, gathering more strength, Jared thought, and then he began to push downward and so did Jared and so did Lalia, driving the thing toward the grass. It fought against them; it seemed, in this fight, to forget about Mimi and she shook herself at least partly free and tried, with weakened hands, to push along with them. The thing resisted, resisted, and then suddenly it let go; Mimi fell free, as if the release of tension sent her tumbling back out of the meadow, and Issio and Jared and Lalia held the thing among them.

A blast of hatred and fury hit Jared and he leaned back away from it, and the thing became an arm he was holding, the arm of a large grim angry woman glaring at him, glaring at Issio, trying to shake them off. Issio hung on, and so did Jared, and Lalia got a fresh grip on her waist as she tried to pull away, to go after Mimi.

Push her toward me! Jared said to Issio, acting on an impulse, and Issio caught his thought; Lalia, gripping the waist, looked at them puzzled. Issio pushed the arm he held toward Jared and Jared pushed toward Issio and between them the form compacted and contracted as it fought them. Lalia, catching on, began to push too. Jared saw clearly for an instant the large angry woman who had once been a renowned scientist throughout the Alliance; he saw her, and he saw the thing inside her, which was very bright, almost too bright to look upon. It looked out of her eyes, and then she shrank back –

And Issio had her, a small golden ball clutched in his strong fist. I take her to the mouse, he said. Bring Mimi.

Here, said Lalia, at the end of the meadow, and Jared turned around and saw tall grass and muted sun and Mimi's eyes, half closed where she lay. Mimi, he said, reaching for her.

Jared.

Come with me.

She sighed, closed her eyes. I'm tired.

You can rest later. Come with me.

Lalia reached out and took one of Mimi's hands; Jared held on to the other. We will take you back, Issio said, gripping a small golden thing in his hand. Come.

Tired.

Clyde needs you, said Jared, and saw just a little flare in those opening eyes.

We all need you, said Lalia, pulling gently on her arm, and she looked from one to another of them.

We can help you. The others will help you, said Jared, turning back to the barricade; it was very dark there, but he could hear the music winding through the meadow. He took a good grip on Mimi's hand and looked to be sure Lalia, also, held her. He followed the music, entwined threads of music, pipes, strings, a drum, and a boy and his second-hand guitar, and the power that came to them through the music, and then he was standing in the wreckage of the barrier of thorns, but here there was no direction; the music moved and circled around them and he could not see where to go.

What now? asked Lalia. Where is the way out?

Jared reached with his free hand and felt it taken, felt someone tugging, felt someone calling him. This way! he said, and held tight to Mimi's arm; Lalia gripped her other arm and Issio, with his free hand, took Lalia's hand. And Jared followed the call and the hand in his.

And then it was bright with artificial lights, and he was sitting in a straight chair beside a hospital bed, Mimi's hand limp in his right hand, Cara's hand tight in his left. On the other side of the bed, Lalia was kneeling on the floor holding on to Mimi, and Issio was clutching the mouse cage with his hands spread open over the bars.

He felt people all around him, none of whom mattered as much as the one beside him, gripping his left hand.

"Cara mia," he said, closing his hand around hers, and became aware of something emitting screams of fury and Zamuaon curses in a voice that was far too familiar; cage bars rattled and the It howled, shifting to Bahtan, interspersed with strings of Earthian obscenities. The mouse glared through the bars, showed her tiny teeth, snapped her naked pink tail.

Jared raised his head and looked at Issio. "I guess it worked," he said, and Issio looked over the top of the cage and growled, showing the tips of his fangs.

"I believe that it did," he said, "and now we have this thing in a cage again."

On the bed, Mimi moved her head, just a little, and Jared looked up and saw her eyes open, and it was Mimi looking out again, he thought. Lalia scrambled to her feet and felt for Mimi's pulse. "Mimi," Jared said, and she smiled, a small weak smile, and then she closed her eyes and slept.

Someone – he didn't see who; he thought it might be Carter or Chazaerte – moved the raving mouse in her cage out to the back porch, where she cursed the sundown in her usual colorful multilingual fashion. Clyde came and sat down on the straight chair beside Mimi, who didn't stir. Jared said, "She's tired," and Clyde nodded, smiling.

With Cara beside him, Jared moved into the living room and sat down on the couch bed. It was surprising how tired he felt, having had no physical exertion. Issio was sitting on the other side of the bed, rubbing his head. "Tell Sofi and Gina," Issio said, "but do not let them come," and then he closed his eyes and sunk his head into his hands, and Zarei rushed out of the house in a jangle of bracelets and ankle chains.

Jared sat, holding Cara. He closed his eyes and saw the meadow and the thing twining itself around Mimi, and he opened his eyes again to the sunset glow fading on the ceiling. After a moment there was a stir beside him and he saw Maud standing just behind Cara, conceding to his wife the right to hold his hand. Cara turned her head, seemed to think about it, and then put a hand on Maud's arm, including her.

Jared managed a smile at both of them and then closed his eyes again and regarded the bramble barricade once more. Out on the back porch the mouse swore in excellent dock-side Trade. Issio shifted uncomfortably, and Jared had just energy enough to touch his mind and found the same images of the meadow and the twining thing.

"I found my way out," he said to Cara, "because you had my hand. Did you know that?"

"You reached for me," she said. "I saw you reach for me."

"You brought us all out," said Issio. Lalia came and sat down on the bed behind Issio; she looked tired too, but satisfied. Daylight slipped away. There were lots of people in the room; Louise was standing in the bedroom doorway, looking at Mimi, turning back to look at Jared and Issio, looking again at Mimi. Zarei came back in the front door, bringing with her the music from the porch, the intertwined threads of music that he had heard far away in the meadow with the tall grass; he drifted on the stream of music, and put his head against Cara and closed his eyes.

 

"Science, ours, not yours," said Lalia earnestly, over the breakfast bar and the clutter of coffee cups and juice glasses, sparkling in morning sunlight. "The Zamuaons understand a little of it. Issio doesn't like it called psi, superstition, he said. We're not dealing in superstitions and magic. These are powers that can be managed and controlled."

"It looked like magic," said Cara, and Louise nodded.

"So do vid players," she said, "and cell-driven cars, if you came, say, from Old Earth in the nineteenth century. This is merely something we don't understand. When we understand it, we will understand the natural laws it follows –"

"And control it," said Lalia, nodding. "Which I admit we are deficient at ourselves; it's like your people, you know. You use the vid player without understanding the science that makes it work."

"The science is there, though," said Louise, and Lalia nodded again.

"Oh, absolutely," she said.

"I never saw anything like it," Louise told Jared, across the living room. "The three of you just sat there touching Mimi and looking at her, and then Issio got up and put his hands on the cage and the mouse started all that yelling and you and Lalia lifted your heads and there you were again. And so was Mimi."

Cara refilled Jared's cup and brought it to the recliner where he was, reasonably enough, reclining. He was still tired, running, he thought, near empty, but he was better after a sleep that had lasted well into the morning, and he really didn't need to be waited on; he felt a little guilty about that, but not enough to put up a serious protest. "Has anyone talked to Clyde?" he asked.

"Yes, Mimi's mostly sleeping but she woke up and spoke to him in the night," said Cara. "He said she made good sense; she sounded like herself again. He wanted to know if you and Issio wanted incense burned in your temple, or if you would prefer live sacrifices. I told him anything but virgins." Her blue eyes twinkled at him. "Dr. Frank's coming by during the noon hour. Phyllis and Lillian promised him lunch and the full story after he looks at Mimi."

Mention of the Hardesty sisters brought to mind their boarders. "Patterson," he said, with foreboding. "Did he go to work? Did anyone go with him?"

"Carter went," said Lalia. "Don't worry. The brother-in-law is appearing in court today, and with any luck they'll set a high enough bail that he'll have to stay in jail."

"He's a danger," said Louise, "to the rest of the community. Someone should go and testify." Jared raised his head, and she waved him off. "Patterson," she said. "Not you. Not now. You've done enough. That mouse; I never saw such a thing in my life!"

"Where is the mouse?" asked Jared. "We're running out of basements. We can't put it in Issio's house, or Clyde's –"

"Al's house," said Cara. "Or Ann's house, actually. She's downtown stocking up on whatever it is people feed pet mice; she says she's going to have fun throwing kibbles and sneering."

"Our Ann?" said Jared doubtfully. "I'm not sure –"

"She'll be fine," said Cara, and sat down on the arm of his chair and took his hand in both of hers. "Let it go, darling, just rest and let it go. Everything is under control. Among us, we're handling it. So let it go."

And that sounded like good advice, if he could only follow it.

 

Dr. Frank said Mimi looked very good, and Willis and Lillian seemed to be doing fine, and Issio would be in excellent shape with just a little rest and so would Jared. "Never a dull moment around here, is there," he remarked. He spent some time chatting with Lalia and Louise and Dr. Ned, who had joined them after lunch, and departed for his office, whistling.

Sandy Ott called to inquire if it was true Jared had given Patterson permission to store a dozen laser grenades in the corner cabinet in the conference room. Ione Patterson, she said, was trying to raise bail for her brother using the Patterson house as security. There were a lot of agitated lawyers running around. Just exactly how did Dr. Ramirez expect his staff, consisting of scholars and researchers, to take a dozen laser grenades away from Patterson?

"Distract him. Lock him up in another room. Carry off the grenades," said Jared. "Take them back to the military surplus store. No, you don't need a receipt for a refund. You don't need a refund. You just need to get rid of those grenades. We can't possibly leave Patterson in possession of a dozen grenades!"

"I'll get him," said Lalia at once, and grabbed her pendant and disappeared.

"And now that I think of it," said Jared, levering himself out of the recliner, "what about Lalia's practice in Wark's Ferry? Isn't she neglecting her patients?"

"She is taking a week off at this time," said Zarei, drinking coffee on the couch next to Chazaerte. "She felt events here were important enough that she should give them her full attention. She is very conscientious," she said to Dr. Ned, by the breakfast bar drinking diluted tea.

"Must say I agree with her," he said, and Jared smiled at him and caught Cara's eye and left through the back door.

Issio was on his own back porch with Sofi and Gina, who jumped up and went to get two more chairs, although Jared was alone at the moment. "Interesting experience," Jared said to Issio, and Issio switched his tail.

"I did not expect it," he said. "We went where I have not been at any previous time."

Jared took one of the chairs Gina brought and pulled the empty chair up beside him. "I didn't know we could do it," he said.

"Nor I."

"Of course you could," said Sofi. "You are both very strong, and very intelligent, and very able, although you would do better, Jared, with a little training. Also very flexible; you coped with what you found. Which," she added, "I too did not expect. This experience is very strange."

"To say the least," agreed Jared. The four of them sat quietly, looking across the back lawn at the trees forming the little woods that protected the neighborhood from three sides. Birds swooped back and forth, scales glinting in the sunlight, and the branches moved gently in the summer breeze.

Cara came out of their back door, letting it close very quietly behind her, and crossed the lawn; she smiled at their neighbors and sat down beside Jared in the empty chair, moving it a little closer to his. "So," she said. "You did it; you got the fly out of Mimi. Now what do we do?"

And none of them had an answer.