Llyn walked beside Karine, whose black culottes also swished as she walked. “This has nothing to do with right and wrong, and everything to do with your safety,” Karine said. She paused on the sidewalk and laid a hand on Llyn’s shoulder. Llyn barely felt it. Elroy and Tamsina walked a step ahead with Niklo, and then they halted, too.
“You aren’t like other people.” Karine kept her voice low. “There are things you will never be able to do. I’m protecting you from potential danger. You were foolish to go to the library.”
Llyn answered cautiously, not daring to provoke her further. “I didn’t go alone. I have sense enough not to do that.”
Faint compression lines appeared around Karine’s lips. She didn’t respond until another group of foreign students passed them. Llyn had never seen so many human beings in the flesh.
Not that she recalled, anyway.
“Listen.” Karine fingered her garnet pendant. “I always check current records of the Rakaya Shasruud Laboratory when I come into Nuris. That information is only available on secured terminals in the city.”
Llyn glanced up at the dome’s blue underside and the honeycomb pattern of braces that held it in place. They fascinated her, but she had no memory of Rakaya Shasruud. “I know you do,” she murmured.
Karine stepped closer. “My terminals also record incoming activity. Someone else has been stripping the net for information on you—not today, but in a random pattern over the last week.”
Llyn smiled slightly. Maybe she was less alone in this world than she’d thought. “Someone else knows about me?”
Karine pointed at Niklo. “There, you see? She’s that naïve! You can’t expect her to know what is dangerous.”
Dangerous?
Niklo shrugged. “She tries to be careful. We all do.”
Karine squeezed Llyn’s shoulder, and now Llyn felt it clearly. “I don’t think anyone would look for you with generous motives. You could be in danger. We are going straight home.”
“Home?” Llyn cried. “What about the concert? Wasn’t that supposed to be part of my social lesson? We have Regent Salbari’s personal invitation.”
Elroy cleared his throat and bent his head down toward Karine. “Regent Salbari did ask us to attend. His private box should be the safest place there.”
“I would like to hear the choir,” Tamsina put in. “I sang in it when I came up for University.”
“It’ll start in just a few minutes.” Niklo pointed west across the lawn. Karine had led them several degrees off the direct course. “They’ve opened the auditorium.”
Llyn tried not to beg with her eyes. Karine tended to punish that pleading expression.
Karine frowned. “All right. We will go straight to the auditorium and wait there.”
Mentally, Llyn blessed Niklo, Elroy, and Tamsina. Aloud, she murmured to Karine, “Thank you, Mother.”
Tamsina led across the grassy campus at a stroll that spared Llyn’s energy. They approached a tall building that was almost square, except that Llyn’s eye for geometry picked up asymmetries in its roofline.
Karine had explained that this afternoon’s concert was not as formal as an evening affair would have been, but she’d specially ordered Llyn the silky outfit, so Llyn expected to see other people’s finery. Nor was she disappointed. Many men walking up the tall auditorium’s steps wore black culottes with white tunics, the height of formality. Some women belted their tunics over their culottes. Others let both garments hang loose and blend into a long line. Body scents mingled and clashed in the foyer. A hubbub of voices baffled her keen hearing. She could distinguish only snatches of other groups’ conversations.
“…new composition by Elex Hale …”
“…never been any navigational problems …”
“…but it wasn’t on the final exam …”
Llyn tried not to worry that she might experience a flashback. It had been several weeks since her last one. Any pair of musical notes, if they related to each other in the tonality of that lost inner world, could render her helpless. In a way, Karine was right. Attending this concert was inviting disaster.
But what pageantry! Chandeliers spiraled overhead. Concertgoers crowded a food and drink station, and uniformed ushers stood at all doors. She spotted three black-haired people who looked predominantly neo-Asian, a blend of oriental and Native American families who’d banded together on one of the generation ships.
Karine steered the group through the foyer toward a curved, shining staircase at its right. Llyn hadn’t a guess what choral music might sound like, but the idea intrigued her. Many voices together ought to communicate more deeply than a single individual. It seemed logical.
At the foot of the stairs, two ushers watched the throng. Their black uniforms looked exactly alike, right down to the metal woven into their belts.
Karine stepped up to the woman. “I’m Medic Torfinn,” she said. “Party of five, to join Filip Salbari’s group.”
The usher raised a personal reader. “Yes. Box three is at the top of the stairs on your left. Go on up.”
Karine beckoned to Llyn and led the way. The stairs were carved from black stone flecked with red, white, and gray. Llyn wondered how this enormous building had been reinforced against quakes. The staircase was much quieter than the lobby below. She followed Karine toward a doorway and paused there, winded. Karine strode through.
Niklo stopped beside Llyn’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“There’s been a lot of climbing today.” Llyn straightened her shoulders, loosened her hands at her sides, and walked in.
The hubbub that had assaulted her down below boomed up here, too. Regent Filip Salbari stood two stair steps below her. Beyond and below him, a large window opened over the auditorium. Regent Salbari reached for her hand and presented it to another elegant woman, whose curly brown hair sparkled with tiny white flecks. She wore a brilliant green velvet tunic over her culottes. “Llyn, this is my wife, Favia Hadley. Favia, Llyn Torfinn.”
Vananda’s sister would be another daughter of the famous Athis Pallaton—right? Aware of Karine’s scrutiny, Llyn glanced down respectfully. For the past year, Karine had drilled her in public-place poise. Chin forward, eyes moving. Hands loose at your sides, ready to reach out for balance, gifts, or handclasps.
The woman’s bright eyes were brown, not green like her sister’s. Favia looked older than Karine, maybe forty-five or fifty. One of her eyebrows was raised. Didn’t that suggest amusement? “I hope you enjoy the concert, Llyn. Karine, may I compliment you on your daughter?”
Llyn warmed from her shoulders to the top of her scalp. Favia Hadley’s voice accepted both Llyn and Karine.
Karine backed up to stand beside Llyn. “She is a good student.” Karine smiled toward Regent Salbari.
The adults turned aside to converse, so Llyn pivoted and took a look around. Regent Salbari’s box, walled on three sides but open to the enormous room below, overlooked the stage from one side. Studying the angles of stage, ceiling, walls, and floors, she abruptly realized she could follow the paths that sound waves were meant to travel once they left the stage. Voices babbled down in the hall, creating discordant chaos.
As if he’d perceived her thought, Regent Salbari touched a button on the wall. A transparent panel slid down from the ceiling and shut off the din.
That might come in handy later, if she blacked out and the party wanted privacy to revive her. Karine had warned her to anticipate this.
Karine was always predicting disasters.
Llyn stepped to the edge of the box and stared down. From up here, she primarily saw hair colors, mostly brown like Karine’s, with many darker and a few lighter. On well-dressed bodies, fabrics flowed loosely, some brilliant and some pastel. Distant mouths moved, but with the transparent panel in place, she couldn’t hear their speech.
Tamsina joined her at the balcony’s edge, resting a manicured hand on the back of a plush seat. “Don’t look down,” she said. “Look across at the other boxes. That’s where things are really interesting. Straight ahead—see those three boxes? That’s the Tourelle matriarchy. They own half the manufacturing on Antar.”
Llyn peered across the hall. Five women, four men, and three small children had taken seats in the opposite box. Another dozen people milled in boxes to its left and right.
“Left from them,” Tamsina said, “are two Sheliak boxes. That’s a paterline like this one. They’re short a few today. Two of them went to Tdega to represent us in the talks.”
Even from this distance, Llyn could see one woman’s necklace sparkle. The jewelry must be massive.
“One more box left, you can just see … there, see the man wearing all black? That’s Head Regent Anton Salbari.”
Llyn straightened and stared. There stood Regent Filip Salbari’s father, the most powerful man in the Concord. Other than his all-black academic attire, from this distance he looked like an ordinary man of sixty or seventy.
“Did you say Anton Salbari?” Niklo stepped down behind them. “Where?”
Abruptly Karine turned her head and looked down the steps. “Llyn,” she exclaimed, “get away from that window.”
Llyn backed around Niklo. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Someone might see you. Someone who was looking for you on the net—”
It was tempting to step forward again anyway, but Regent Salbari spoke up. “It’s time we were seated. Llyn, you’re here.” He motioned her to the center seat in the front row. To her delight, he sat down beside her. His seat had exceptionally wide armrests. He fingered one of them, and the window reopened. Below, the hubbub quieted.
This was her chance. If she blacked out during the concert, she might not see Regent Salbari again. “Sir?” She bent close to his shoulder. “May I ask you a favor?”
Out of one corner of her eye she saw Karine cock her head, eavesdropping.
“Certainly,” Regent Salbari said, “within reason.”
She plunged forward. “There’ll be an on-site class offered next week up in Lengle. It’s on Antaran history. I’d like to take it.”
Karine leaned across Llyn toward Regent Salbari. “Llyn, we’ve discussed that several times. It’s not a good idea, because—”
Regent Salbari lifted a hand. “Wait a moment, Karine. Llyn, why would you want to take it in person? You have terminals at the clinic.”
“I’m always at the clinic. Sir,” she added.
“Yes. She takes satellite classes,” Karine said. “She sees other people.”
“But not in person.” He nodded at Llyn. “It’s lonely for you, isn’t it?”
He understood! Karine understood, too—she had to, she was an empath—but she did nothing about it. Llyn nodded. “I want to broaden my boundaries, sir. It’s important to me.”
Regent Salbari glanced at Karine. “That’s normal for a person your age. But be aware that you can broaden them too far. Things can go out of control inside them. Your pets can get into your garden.”
Karine nudged Llyn.
“On the other hand,” he continued, lowering his voice to a whisper as the audience silenced, “the scars that you suffer in life often prepare you for your greatest accomplishments. Your pets’ fresh droppings may burn today’s plants, but in time those spots become the most fertile.”
“Interesting thought,” Karine muttered.
Llyn’s cheeks warmed. If she’d made that sort of biological observation, she’d have been instantly disciplined.
Regent Salbari folded his hands in his lap and whispered, “Let’s see how she does tonight, Karine. Her social development probably does need accelerating.”
“I disagree. Social development is not necessary for survival in this world.”
After all Karine’s coaching, how could she say such a thing? Llyn opened her mouth to argue.
Regent Salbari crossed his legs and smoothed his culottes. “Karine, in the struggle for human dignity, there is always a cost. Sometimes you must make difficult choices—”
Another man all in black stepped onto the stage. Regent Salbari lifted his hand again, ending the conversation.
Llyn sat back. At least Regent Salbari wanted to give her a chance. Now it was imperative that she not have a flashback. There was something at stake.
The man in black talked for several minutes about Nuris University, the excellence of its programs, and Antar’s centrality to the Concord. He praised Head Regent Anton Salbari at length.
Llyn stifled a yawn.
Abruptly the opaque panel on stage vanished. Llyn knew she was supposed to be quiet, so she didn’t gasp, but she’d never seen a wall do that in this world. Was this a flashback?
No. Four rows of ordinary people, most of them only a little older than Niklo, stood on steps that curved toward the downstairs audience. At first, they looked as if all their tunics and culottes matched, until Llyn realized they wore electric-blue robes. A woman wearing a matching robe paraded to center stage. Everyone in the theater clapped their hands together, so Llyn joined in. She found she could vary the sound by angling or cupping her palms. When hundreds of people did it, it made a soft, high-pitched roar. She liked it.
Karine sat with her lips pressed tightly together, her stare darting from Llyn to the stage. Llyn braced in her seat. At any moment she would probably waft away. Always before, she had enjoyed—deeply—what she couldn’t control. This time she must squelch it. If her mind flashed back this time, Karine might lock her up. For good.
“…one of the oldest poems recorded among Earth’s Irish population,” the robed woman continued, “credited to Ireland’s patron saint, Patrick. ‘The Deer’s Cry.’” She turned and raised her arms. Without any visible cue for pitch, a hundred mouths opened. Llyn sat breathless as they sang, hypnotized by a new and complex harmony.
“I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.”
She had never heard anything so beautiful. Voices grouped by timbre echoed each other in an intricate rhythmic and harmonic chase.
“I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of creation.”
Karine had called her triangular garnet pendant “Creator’s Blood.” She had taught Llyn more about the empaths’ religion, but she hadn’t demanded that Llyn follow it. If Karine had presented it this way, she’d have found Llyn a willing convert!
Abruptly Llyn realized she’d remained seated in her chair, pulled down by stodgy and unimaginative gravity. Only the overhead lights glimmered. No grid lines measured the universe, no geometries enticed her. Instead, lyrics leaped like deer off the stage, up to the box, into her mind. She stared straight ahead. She would not look at Karine. She would act like a normal person.
Involved in the song, she recognized a string of words she’d already heard. She’d read poems that had refrains. The melody, too, sounded familiar here.
The third time it happened, Llyn murmured along under her breath. “I arise today through a mighty strength …” This time, she glanced aside. Karine had turned fully toward her, ignoring the choir.
Llyn stopped. Was she doing something unacceptable?
Karine shook both hands in an encouraging gesture. Llyn whispered along with the refrain’s last line. Regent Salbari also watched, and she thought his slight smile looked kindly.
Llyn faced forward, closed her mouth, shut her eyes, and relaxed in the deep, soft chair. The music flowed on, a choral multitude in perfectly pitched harmony. The universe felt right.
“I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of creation.”
The song ended. Momentarily grieved, Llyn joined thunderous applause. She gathered her culottes to stand up.
The woman onstage caught the robed people’s attention again. Llyn held her breath. Would there be more?
The choir began another song. Llyn relaxed, bathing in a sense of power. Just for tonight, the universe made sense and she could control herself in it. She’d never felt so happy in this dull, gridless world. For the first time she could remember, a deep sense of loss and homesickness dropped away.
If reality could always be this wonderful, she might actually prefer it to her sweet geometric memories. She might stop caring who had conceived her. She might reach out to the future.
The choir had finished its third song when Regent Salbari reached for his right armrest. Llyn saw only a few colored buttons, but Regent Salbari stared into the air over them. Lines deepened on his forehead and between his eyes. He grasped Favia Hadley’s hand, bent close to her sparkling hair, and whispered into her ear. Llyn was too inexperienced to interpret strangers’ faces, but she thought Gen’n Favia’s wide eyes and slightly open lips meant shock.
Almost immediately, a plainclothed man walked out into the center of the stage and interrupted the robed woman, who had been reciting an introduction Llyn hadn’t heard. He grasped the woman’s arm and spoke to her softly, then stepped to the center of the stage. “Gens and Gen’ns, I apologize for interrupting this concert. We will conclude with the next anthem. There is bad news. A sensor sweep of space near Tdega Gate has positively identified an expanding cluster of debris as wreckage from the Antaran consular ship Aliki and the Tdegan Pride of Lions. We have no word yet as to how they were destroyed, and an investigation will begin immediately. But first, let us observe a moment of silence in memory of those courageous passengers and crews.” He bowed to the robed woman.
She clasped her hands and stood without moving for several seconds.
A shipload of the Concord’s best people? Two shiploads? Stunned, Llyn glanced left. Head Regent Anton Salbari’s booth window had already dropped and darkened. Across from where she sat, the other boxes’ occupants had kept their windows open, but people were already hurrying up their short staircases to leave.
Filip Salbari stood. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Llyn and Karine. “Thank you for attending.” He kept one hand at his wife’s waist, and they hustled up to the box door.
Gen’n Favia Hadley’s father was among the dead, wasn’t he?
How horrible.
Karine looked dazed, her stare glassy.
“Are you all right?” Llyn whispered.
Niklo bent across Regent Salbari’s empty chair. “Do you think Tdega destroyed them?”
“Surely not.” Karine’s lips moved, but her gaze was fixed straight ahead. The choir started singing again. “Sh,” Karine said.
Llyn straightened in her chair. Terrible visions of a spaceship’s last moments sprang into her mind, fueled by historical dramas she’d seen. She heard little of the choir’s final anthem.
Even Elroy and Tamsina remained silent as Karine led back to the open area where she had parked the family car for recharging. Niklo kissed his mother perfunctorily and strode off toward his tall, concrete housing stack, probably eager to turn on his e-net for developments.
The car had no viewing screens. Llyn took one more uneasy glance up at the honeycomb braces supporting the dome and then slid onto the back bench with Tamsina. Elroy took the driver’s seat.
From the other front seat, Karine switched on nonvisual news. The reader was finishing a grim catalogue of debris that the survey ship had found, chiefly metal shards and expanding gases. Their composition seemed to support a theory of space-warp destruction, possibly caused by a long-dreaded malfunction finally developing in the Gate system. Concord settlers still did not understand how they worked or where the energy came from to operate them.
The i-net reader went on to reiterate why the Concord had sent the Aliki. Concord representatives had been ordered to promise naturally fertile Tdega all their own planets’ future resources at drastically reduced trade rates, if only Tdega delivered the templates. Everything from faulty silica to weak welding had been blamed for the food shortages.
Karine snapped off the speaker. “That’s all we’ll hear for a while.”
“The real reason for shortages,” Elroy said, “is that the Tdegan government won’t release those nanotech templates.”
“The real reason,” Tamsina insisted, “is that nano-machines couldn’t be programmed to fix themselves.” The microscopic technology had proved so fussy to maintain, in fact, that it had only been economically successful for food production and locator chips.
The car sped out of the huge University dome and into a dim inner pipeway, where two-way traffic felt claustrophobic under pale yellow lamps. The next open area, green with grass and shrubbery, was flooded by filtered sunlight and lined with shop-and-domicile stacks. Llyn glanced up at another sky-blue city dome.
She had heard that Nuris was a sizeable network of domes and pipeways. Now she knew.
Two ships. Maybe four hundred people. Poof.
One more pipeway took them into the final dome southward. Llyn stared up longingly, determined to remember this scene as part of her day at Nuris University. This dome’s ceiling seemed even farther away. An air liberation factory, where oxygen was chemically released from pulverized surface rock, thrust tall stacks toward the dome’s underside. Inside this dome complex, the artificial atmosphere was thick enough to support indefinite outdoor activity. Outside, thanks to constant efforts at atmospheric renewal, people could survive without supplemental oxygen—but Antarans carried breath masks if they planned to work outdoors.
Nuris’s southernmost arch loomed overhead and passed behind, and they emerged into the open. As usual, heavy clouds shrouded a sullen sky. To Llyn’s surprise, Antar’s red double star peeped through near the horizon. It was a monthly event, at most. A seeder plane swooped out of the clouds to land alongside the cluster of city domes. Nuris University was still re-cooling Antar’s upper atmosphere after the Devastators’ crippling attack, precipitating out water as quickly as possible, seeding the clouds with algal spores. More free water would support more oxygen-producing algae on the planet’s surface—and would itself absorb carbon dioxide, a buffer effect that the Devastators had destroyed when they boiled off so much of Antar’s old ocean. Fertilizing the algae with iron also helped absorb greenhouse carbon dioxide.
The Devastators had bombarded planetary oceans, raising vast thermal storms that almost turned the Concord worlds into clones of Earth’s sister Venus. Seven systems’ settlers were wiped out. Only the Tdegan and Antaran flotillas had escaped detection.
The car swerved around a geothermal area. Outside Llyn’s bubble window, volcanic plains sped by. Much of Antar was virtually featureless, except to geologists interested in the composition of lava flows.
Between broad algae paddies, they passed evidence of Antar’s pre-Devastator past. A ghost forest of brush and scrub, brittle stems and twigs two hundred years dead, stood unrotted. The terraformers still called Antar’s environment “bacteriologically impoverished.” Antaran survivors had risked their lives, returning to thwart a runaway greenhouse barely in time.
Llyn curled up in her seat and watched the volcanic plains flow past. In her memory, the refrain of that first terribly sweet anthem thundered again, its melody matched by torrential chords:
“I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity …”
Two ships. Destroyed. Had the Devastators come back?
Another car pulled up beside theirs. Evidently it was fuel-powered, because its engine droned noisily over the charge car’s soft hum. As it accelerated and sped past, the pitch of its engine changed.
The bubble window over her head shimmered and collapsed. A glimmering grid appeared, defining space-time with a slow, dignified sweep. Against a blue background, brilliant geometric shapes coalesced.
Old friends! Leaving her weak, skinny body droopy-eyed in the car, Llyn sang herself upward. Grid lines dropped as she rose, free of dependence, free of confinement, with a blessed sweep of harmony flooding her perception.
She floated, rejoicing. A softly colored choir sang songs of the universe. The very stars vibrated, overjoyed to exist. Exalted to the depth of her spirit, Llyn vibrated out a melody with them, singing her own line to the stars’ accompaniment. It was a song she didn’t remember, yet somehow she knew it by heart. It was her own song, a gift from the true Composer. She was not required to sing anyone else’s line: not Karine’s, Niklo’s, or Filip Salbari’s. Only Llyn’s. If every star sang its own melody, the result would be magnificent.
Utterly contented, singing this new gift of song, she wafted effortlessly into a glimmering opal sky.
“Oh, no. Medic Torfinn!”
Karine turned toward Tamsina’s exclamation. Llyn had slumped in the seat, staring up at the bubble dome, wearing a rapt smile.
Karine had learned to hate that smile.
“She did it again.” Tamsina reached into her pocket for the penlight she always carried. “I’ll—”
“What else is wrong?” Karine demanded. Why was Tamsina hesitating?
Tamsina bent over and rummaged on the seat. “I can’t find my penlight. I must have lost it somewhere. I—I was looking down at the floor during the concert. I must have set it aside.”
Stupid! The easiest way to recapture Llyn would be to force open one eye and whisk a bright light back and forth in front of it, but Karine had left her light at the clinic, depending on Tamsina. “Elroy?”
The big man shook his head.
Several years ago, Karine had implanted a white-noise generator in Llyn’s left ear, trying to prevent these episodes. It hadn’t helped. They’d had to remove it. “You’ll have to do it the hard way,” Karine said.
Llyn grinned idiotically as Tamsina reached for her forearm.
Bitter pain shot through Llyn, high in a shimmering sky. Pain in her arm…
What was an arm?
Irrelevant. She wafted on, singing as she flew. A splendid green pyramid appeared near her horizon. She sang herself toward it.
Pain continued to nag at her. Hazy fog descended over her shimmering world. Her green playmate blurred at its edges. Annoyed, Llyn twisted and spun around a Z-axis marker. She tried to sing color back into fading grid lines.
Her playmate wilted, turning dreary and brown. All around her, beautiful harmonies faded. The world was ending, dying …
Her arm hurt.
Arm. Llyn remembered the shape of an arm. It was part of that other world. The world that hurt. Rumbled. Frightened.
Maybe she could escape. She poured on speed. Grid lines whizzed beneath her. Vainly she tried to sing color back into her beloved inner realm, but it kept darkening. The grid lines vanished. Like thousands of candles snuffed simultaneously, her choir winked out. No, she mourned. Not again. She sped on in a black vacuum.
Someone out there—hopefully Tamsina—had been pinching her. They would watch as Llyn’s body convulsed in rigid seizure.
She knew what she ought to do, but she hesitated, reflecting on the oddity of what had just happened. Choral music had no effect on her equilibrium, but let a single note change pitch, and that left her helpless. How could this be?
“Llyn!” Karine’s voice thundered. “Come back!”
Karine doubtless sensed that her “unique subject” was making no effort.
Hurt and angry, Llyn huddled in her dark cocoon a few moments longer. All of the stars had sung together, and she had sung with them. She never wanted to forget that. She must not feel humiliated when Karine demanded to analyze and criticize her sweet flashback. It had been right. The universe might collapse, but that music had held meaning.
“Llyn, you will begin returning or I will cancel that on-site class regardless of Regent Salbari’s permission.”
Resigned to bitter reality, Llyn gathered herself for the long climb back out. She thought about tightness. Thought herself tight. Tightness.
Instantly the pain snapped off.
Tamsina’s work was done. Now Llyn’s must begin.
She owned a mouth. She had lungs and vocal cords—her own, not some other creature’s. Her will was not a parasite on this thin human body, but its rightful soul. She drew a deep breath and worked her mouth, lungs, and vocal cords. A faint tone, ugly and harsh compared to the inner world’s harmonies, resonated through her skull into physical ears.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. She rubbed her sore arm. She would have a glorious bruise. It took abusive force to make her feel anything. Why hadn’t Tamsina used her penlight?
Karine’s face peered over the front seat, eyes narrow. “What happened?”
Llyn tried to remember. Something about … engine noises? Outside her bubble window, the road wound uphill under darkening clouds. A craggy chain of new mountains, still growing by centimeters each day, glowered down. The car had nearly reached Lengle township and the Torfinn-Reece clinic.
“I don’t remember much.” She glanced aside at Tamsina. The other woman looked apologetic, bowing her head and clasping both hands in her lap. Tamsina knew what must follow. For an hour or more, Llyn would be even more sensitive than usual to melody—to any melody, even as short as two notes, if they related to each other in her private world’s tonality.
She would also be vulnerable to the sensations Karine used to discipline her.
Llyn ignored Karine’s stare, looking out at Antar’s landscape instead. The South River valley glowed a soft, fertile green by twilight. Mosses, ferns, and other plants grew here, genetically engineered for quick spread on a hot, humid planet that was returning to life under the terraformers’ guidance.
Elroy steered off the main road at a bend of the river and followed its blue-white course one more kilometer upstream. Between a windbreak of fastpine and a fiberglass half-dome that enclosed Karine’s small orchard, airtight stone walls constituted the clinic enclave. Llyn tried not to think of it as her prison, although that sense had been growing over the past months.
She wondered whether Karine would deal first with the flashback, demanding to empathically “see” everything Llyn had just experienced, or if she would first punish Llyn for escaping with Niklo to the library.
Did she dare to hope that Karine, caught up in concern for that destroyed consular ship, might skip directly to dinner?
Probably not. As Karine often said, hope was cheap.
Elroy parked in a low stone garage. They walked silently through a glass walkway full of narrow-leafed, oxygenating plants to the clinic’s main entry. Up here in the mountains, prevailing winds piled the clouds that formed over Mare Novus, the world’s largest sea. The clouds rose and cooled and dropped rain here, and greenery grew along warm rivers. Despite Lengle’s altitude, those winds made the air here slightly better than at Nuris. People could comfortably walk short distances outdoors.
Inside the main entry, Llyn took a quick look up the spacious, carpeted hallways toward staff housing and the therapy area. Muffled laughter—as much noise as she ever heard in this building—suggested a help group meeting behind a closed door. She didn’t see anyone in either direction, although Karine might sense more than Llyn perceived.
“This way.” Karine walked up the right hallway and stopped in front of a room Llyn had come to dread.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Llyn tried not to plead, but she couldn’t help it.
“I think you know differently.” Karine slid the door open. A light switched on automatically.
Llyn spotted the electrical console, the patient monitor, and the examining table. In here, Karine punished Llyn—and occasionally other patients—using mild electrical shocks she called “tactile response therapy.”
“I’m too old to be spanked, Mother.”
“You were acting like a child, and this isn’t a spanking. It hurts me as much as you. Literally.”
True, if Karine chose to synch. Karine would monitor Llyn’s sensations and emotions until she sensed a repentant attitude. Resisting only prolonged the punishments.
Llyn hesitated, digging one heel into the hall carpet. She could just stand here, but Karine only had to touch a button to call Elroy. And as kindhearted as he was, he worked for Karine. Once, he had given Llyn bruises wrestling her onto the table—and had avoided her eyes for days afterward.
She felt fire in her cheeks as she walked through the door.
Half an hour later, Llyn quickstepped back into the hallway with her shoulders and arms stinging. Around the corner past the broad lobby, two stair steps dropped down into a plainly furnished dining area. She smelled poultry roasting. Tissue-cloned meat was a rare treat at the clinic. Apparently someone on staff felt sorry for her.
Karine followed closely. Llyn halted at the door of her supposedly private bedroom, which was located for Karine’s convenience close to her office, therapy rooms, and the dining area. “It’s too early for dinner,” Karine said. “You have time to exercise.”
Llyn frowned. She’d managed enough “proper attitude” to stop Karine’s therapy session within a few minutes, but she couldn’t hold that emotional pose forever. “I have two exams tomorrow, one in math and one in ecology. I’d like to study.”
“No. You’re full of adrenaline. Go spend some time in a gym.” Karine gripped her arm. “I think I can understand why you wanted to visit the library, but you must trust me. I’ll help you look for your genetic parents when the time is right.”
Llyn almost gagged. Karine didn’t simply punish infractions. She wanted to reshape Llyn’s soul. The declared goal was Llyn’s independence, but Llyn couldn’t imagine Karine releasing her from the clinic if she lived to be a hundred.
“All right,” she mumbled. “I’ll work out.”
“That’s my girl.”
Llyn slipped into her room. Gritting her teeth, she eased the door shut. I’m not your girl, she wanted to scream. She would give so much to be normal. Whole. To have only one mind’s eye.
She slipped out of her festive blue outfit and into old exercise clothes.