Jahn abbreviated Alun’s morning lessons and kept listening. Security guards passed in the hall, but none acted suspicious. Over and over, he wondered: Luene Casimir had a reputation for intelligence, but she had taken only two days to realize what he was. Who else might have seen through his cover?
Only someone equally familiar with empaths and who would recognize empath mannerisms—he hoped. He should be safe for a few hours. He’d left her in her room, reading the i-net, but as soon as he returned to Alun’s suite, he had leeched her line, ready to rush back outdoors if she transmitted any kind of report.
She didn’t. She plainly did not trust him, but he found himself almost trusting her.
At midmorning break, her terminal went into hibernation. She had probably finished her reading assignment. Jahn sent Alun out for a jog around Residence grounds and walked back down to her rooms. A Security guard stood three doors up the hall, ignoring him. Jahn synched for a moment. The guard was not consciously watching him.
But something was afoot. There wasn’t normally this much security in the hall.
Llyn’s servant Peatra admitted him. Llyn sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, cradling a Tdegan lyre against her body. A breeze that smelled like three kinds of flowers ruffled the room’s gauzy curtain. He synched shallowly. She seemed tense.
“Aren’t you supposed to leave music alone?” he asked, praying she would say nothing incriminating in front of Peatra. “I thought it brought on your flashbacks.”
“Sometimes.” She stroked the strings. “Peatra just brought this in for me to see. And look. Nothing happens.”
“It’s pentatonic,” he observed.
She looked up with sharp eagerness in her eyes. “Are you a musician?”
“I was, a long time ago. But you’re taking a risk.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ve discovered something wonderful. This lyre has no half tones.”
“Not if it’s pentatonic. The notes of that scale are farther apart than—”
“Exactly! The music in my artificial world was set in a very tight scale. The octave was divided into seventeen tiny steps, with hundreds of shades of meaning. This music is peaceful. It has no tension. It doesn’t drive me in any direction.”
She was anything but calm, though. “Many people find pentatonic music boring,” he said, “because it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Exactly.” When she smiled, her face radiated peace. “You said you’d been a musician. Was it vocal or instrumental?”
“I sing. Sang, anyway. With a performing group.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Do you have any recordings?”
Oddly, he did. He’d wondered what sentiment had driven him to include those files in his limited confidential storage when he left Antar’s i-net and came to Tdega. Now it seemed miraculous, a possible key to her confidence. “Yes, on a personal reader.”
“I’d like to hear what you sang. Can you go get it?”
“Well—all right.” Once again, he walked out into the hall. He ignored the slow pace of another Security guard strolling toward the elevator, but he synched to make sure he was still safe. Again he sensed no particular vigilance.
He found his personal reader in the pocket of an old pair of work pants, suitable only for crawling around in storage areas. He had rarely needed it here. When he walked back out into Alun’s entry hall, Alun stood there panting. Perspiration bedraggled the sparse hair on his chest. “That was great,” he exclaimed.
Jahn slapped his shoulder. “Go shower. Then order yourself an early lunch.” It would be dark by 0600, lunchtime. Time to leave.
He walked to Llyn’s room again. She laid down her lyre when he pulled the reader out of his pocket. “Thank you,” she exclaimed.
Not seeing Peatra, he gestured toward the door of Llyn’s extra room and raised an eyebrow. “She’s watching i-net,” Llyn said softly.
Jahn thumbed the reader’s control sequence to start the music.
It was an old popular song. Immediately after his University grad, he’d spent an evening with friends making this recording. He would have liked to listen to it. Instead, he adjusted his mental stance and synched with Llyn. She sat on a chair and stared at the floor with her head cocked sideways, as if she were listening to something that threatened to sneak up behind her.
Her emotions, always enthusiastically single, focused on the music. They stretched into it, becoming alarmingly galvanized. Sensitized.
Hastily, he shut off the recording. He needed her trust, but he hadn’t meant to seduce her!
She stirred. “What did you do that for?” she exclaimed. “I was enjoying that. Your voice blends well with the others.”
“You picked me out?” he asked lightly.
“I hear voices very well. Why did you shut it off?”
“You looked upset.” Not quite true, but it would suffice.
“No,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “I wasn’t. I hadn’t felt so … good … since my last really deep flashback.” She laughed lightly. “Turn it back on. Please.”
“I don’t think I should. Music pulls you too deep.” He knew that for certain now.
To his surprise, her voice rose in anger. “If you surround me with restrictions too, I’ll—I’ll send you away.”
“But you’ll—” he began, and he stopped. She hadn’t blacked out. Hedging her with restrictions would never heal her, and her anger was healthier than blind cooperation. She might make terrible mistakes with her freedom, but she must be free to make them.
Besides, if she had deduced his empathy, she would soon realize he’d felt her reaction to the music.
He cleared his throat. “I spoke out of turn. I’m sorry. That would be a wrong thing to do.” He made himself say the words, knowing they were the right words to say, even though his inner man longed to protect her. From himself, if necessary.
“Turn it back on.” She stared at his face as if daring him to refuse.
“Are you sure? You’re making a dangerous choice.”
“Give me the credit for knowing that.”
“Please do me one favor, then,” he said gently. “Don’t listen to music unless I’m here to help you … ah … cope.”
She actually laughed. He’d never heard her laugh before. It sounded like the upbeat of a song he ought to remember. “Would you turn that on, Jahn?”
He pressed the repeat button. The song started over.
He didn’t synch with her this time but listened. He winced at every cracked note and amateurish harmony.
The song ended. She handed back the reader. “I’m healing. I can listen and resist now, even this soon after a flashback.”
“Be careful,” he begged. “We feel strong at the beginning of every learning curve, when we’re acquiring new skills—but at that point, we have very little actual power.”
“I do feel strong.” She stretched her arms over her head.
“When you have fully learned a skill, it’s different. You feel how small you really are, how little you really know. Haven’t you experienced that?”
She whispered in a teasing voice, “Yes, teacher.”
He flickered an eyelid at her.
“I’ve been addicted to a memory.” She pushed back into the chair. “But I do prefer this world—your music—my life—being a free moral agent—over the inner world. So I will participate in my own healing.”
“You’ve barely begun.”
“And I’ll keep on until I die.” Her hand clenched. “But if you try to fence me in, or fence the music out, you’ll kill me. Don’t you understand?”
“I think so,” he murmured. “You’ve taken responsibility for your own actions, right or wrong.”
“Fully human. At last.” She closed her eyes and squeezed out a tear. “But it used to be very sweet in there.”
In where? Oh. In the AR. “You need something sweeter. Something you can choose for, not against.” He synched momentarily and found that her distrust had vanished. His inner man, which had almost kept him from playing that recording, exulted now. “I understand that your … Antaran mother … kept you on a rigid regimen.”
“Karine Torfinn.” She practically snorted the words, glaring at him.
He formed the word Oh with his lips. Karine Torfinn had spoken at one of his training sessions. His classmates decided the woman had an authority fixation.
“She did shape me from a pleasure-seeker into personhood.” Llyn seemed to be staring into a far distance. “And in hindsight, I respect her. But she couldn’t let go. You—right now—could walk out of this room and go where you pleased. Even now, I can’t do that.”
“Freedom without purpose accomplishes little,” he insisted. “If you serve no one, you serve yourself. And the forces of chaos. Those masters will charge a hefty price for what you thought was pure freedom.”
“Are you a religious person?” Her eyes narrowed.
“I’ve chosen what seems the highest sphere.”
“That sounds like Regent Salbari.”
Alarmed, he touched his lips. If anyone were watching or listening—anyone—a statement of agreement could hang him. But he was glad she was talking again, and thinking. He despised the thought of seducing her, although willingness still softened her large brown eyes. He wished she would go on looking at him that way.
“I’m going to take Alun down to the kennels again in an hour,” he said. “Right about sunset. Come with us.”
“All right.” She glanced at the door. “I’ll dress warmly.”
Llyn watched him walk out. She must have embarrassed him, getting so deeply involved in his music. She wished she hadn’t. But when he’d played that song the second time, despite her first reaction and the danger of a flashback—simply because she’d insisted—she had decided to accept him. He probably knew that, too.
Because he was an empath.
She was plagued by them!
The door shut.
Yet it had felt good to hear him sing. To imagine touching him was a warm new experience. She let herself imagine it just a little bit longer: strong arms, a gentle embrace—
Stop that! She recalled his warning and shuddered. It had been bad enough living with someone who could listen to her thoughts. It terrified her to imagine an alien creature living inside them.
In a way, Jahn had been right. If she flashed back to the inner world again here at the Residence, she would be helpless.
She must escape.
So why not go alone? Every service-shop area in the Concord had an ARcade.
The idea shot through her mind like a flash through the grid lines, followed by another: it would be harder for Gen Zavijavah’s Security force to track one runaway alone than three together.
But an AR would be no escape. Sooner or later, they would find her. And she did not want to be alone.
She laid aside the lyre and rested her head on one arm. From this angle, she could see the old Casimir family scrapbook Peatra had brought her. Not one image, not one class trophy had stirred her memory.
She must stay calm for an hour. Until first sunset.