Will
Vance's rooms turned out to be on the second floor, next to the lifts. The first thing he noticed was the table; it was, like the one in his own rooms back at the Stronghold, higher than normal, allowing him to roll directly up to it instead of having to switch to a stationary chair. Then he saw that the cabinets were shorter, and the computer table raised as well. Even the peephole in the door had been moved to a comfortable sitting height. "Who did this?" Vance asked, continuing into the bathroom, where more wonders awaited. The sink and mirror were at the right height, and the faucet controls were simple, easy-to-move levers. Someone had put a chair in the shower, and even moved the showerhead down a few feet—quite recently, judging from the two toned tilework. "This is incredible. It's like my real rooms. Who do I bow to?"
"Um, me," said Tama, with a smile that almost looked shy.
"You?" Vance echoed. "How did you know what to do?"
"I had a friend when we were working the trades," she said. "One of the buildings we were in collapsed. She got out, but she lost her legs." Her eyes, normally flat-seeming, clouded even further. "I learned a lot about what helps. Only for you, I didn't have to have them move the light switches down."
Who'd have guessed? "Well, thank you again," he said. "I'm going to get spoiled if you keep this suite for me." Last time, he'd had to room with Chann, another of the Stronghold's emPowered, just so that someone could help him look presentable. Looking back, remembering how Chann had ended up betraying him and the rest of their organization, he was grateful to have survived the experience.
"That's exactly what we intend to do," said Tama, taking a chair with an expression of relief. "I mean, that shower adjustment is pretty permanent, and I'm in no shape to haul furniture."
Vance couldn't help picturing her carrying a table on her head, and then he couldn't help laughing. "So why go to all this trouble for me?"
"Because I know how wonderful it is when someone goes out of their way to make you feel comfortable," said Tama, and he believed her. She had to have had some bad moments here, especially just at the outset, and someone had to have helped them go away. There was no other way she could be so happy here.
"I understand." He rearranged his hands in his lap, wishing he knew what he was allowed to talk with her about. "So, if I can ask, have you picked a name yet?"
She shook her head. "No problem with asking, but all I know is that despite what you might hear, he's not going to be named after Yaren."
"He? You're sure it's a boy?"
"No, I just couldn't stand saying 'it' anymore, so I picked one," said Tama. "The medics know, but I told them not to tell me."
"Surprise is good," Vance agreed. "My parents insisted on knowing, but I never could figure out why since they didn't do anything stereotypically masculine for me or feminine for my big sister."
"You have a sister?"
"Had," he corrected gently. "She was a congressional aide when they blew the building."
"I'm sorry."
"We all were, when we found out," he said. "Nobody who was actually with the movement wanted to kill so many people, but they didn't see another way. Pretty much everybody who got rescued and survived is still sorry this had to happen for our sake."
"Not just yours," said Tama. "Everyone else's who would have been taken and trapped like you were. The future's bigger than the past."
"That's what I keep saying." Somehow, coming from someone to whom a big part of the future was currently very small, it seemed true instead of ridiculous. "Nobody should ever have had to go through that. I'm surprised as many lived through it as did. Especially after."
Tama's gaze dropped to the floor. He guessed she'd heard about at least some of the other details of transporter work—the drug addiction, the chemical repression of any other Powers a worker might have, the resulting withdrawal. "Was it—bad?" she asked hesitantly, confirming his suspicions.
Bad. Nights spent awake, on fire with pain they'd made sure he could still feel. A need for something without knowing what. Locking himself in a room so that no one else would be hurt when things started flying around. "You could say that."
"I would, but it's not my place," said Tama. "Not unless I knew, and I never want to."
"No, you don't." Vance noticed that she had one arm curled protectively over her belly, and wondered if bringing up the subject had been a mistake. "I'm sorry, I hope I didn't upset you."
"No, don't worry about it," she said. "Everybody's acting like I'm going to break in half, and it's getting really annoying. It's been great talking with somebody who isn't worried sick about me. And little what's-his name."
"Or her name."
"Yeah, but qualifying it like that every time gets to be so much of a mouthful," said Tama, leaning back again. "Not to mention everybody reminds me of it, especially the couple of moms in my classes. At least you're not dispensing infinite advice."
"Oh, well, then I'll make a note not to say it," said Vance. "How is the teaching going? Do you have many students?"
"Fifteen," she said. "Not all from here. The three nearest Points besides yours have all sent at least one person, even though we didn't ask them. I don't know what they think is any better about me teaching than people learning on their own."
"Well, you've been doing this all your life, for one thing," said Vance. "You have a good amount of experience."
"I know, but I have no idea what it's like to have to learn how," Tama pointed out. "I can read all the thoughts and feelings I want, but it's no substitute for the real experience." She suddenly snapped to alertness, face pointed at the door.
Vance turned around and saw Lesana in the doorway. She looked a little frazzled, but he wasn't about to ask why. "Hello."
"Hi Vance. Haven't seen you in a while." Lesana leaned against the doorframe. "How are you?"
"Can't complain. You?"
"Busy, but all right," she said. "Can I steal Tama for a minute?"
"Sure, I don't mind being stolen," said Tama, standing. "It's been fun, I guess," she said to Vance. "I mean, it hasn't not been fun . . . oh, you know what I mean."
Vance smiled. "Yeah, I do. Talk later?"
"Absolutely." Tama joined Lesana in the hall, shutting the door as she left. Vance looked again at his rooms, wondering why she had gone to the trouble for him. She'd said it was just a favor, with no nettles in it, but there seemed to be something more, and somehow he was sure it wasn't pity. She would know better than anyone that he didn't want that. Kinship, then? That could be good. He never said so, but he missed his sister. Tama was perhaps half as old as Cairel would have been, but the feeling was nearly the same. A sister, then, or something like it. The thought made him happier than it had a right to.
"I need to talk to Myrithe," said Lesana, almost as soon as the door closed.
"About what?" Tama thought she might know, but she wasn't about to say that Myrithe wouldn't tell the baby's future, not until she knew that was what Lesana wanted.
"Well, I started out wanting . . . something else, but now I want to know about magic," she said. "I had this idea and I need to know if she knows if it would work."
"Oh," said Tama. "So long as you weren't going to ask her to do something that would remind her of how she got killed." It had been the telling of a baby's future that had gotten someone in a previous life enraged enough to kill Myrithe, and that was the main reason she would no longer do it. Even though they knew now how to bring her back if she died again, Tama was almost sure she wouldn't want them to do it. She didn't dare read Myrithe most of the time, because of the triple layer of thoughts and feelings she had, corresponding to her three disparate "lives," and the disorientation that caused. Still, on the few occasions she had been brave—or foolhardy—enough to try, she had gotten the distinct impression that the other woman knew exactly how much she didn't belong here, and had gone into seclusion not to be away from people, but to be away from this time.
Lesana winced visibly, something she usually kept herself from doing. "Uyah. I nearly forgot about that. But no. I just need someone who's a magic expert, even more than Ranell."
"Then she's your woman," Tama agreed.
"Do you know where she is?"
Ah, the soul of the matter. Tama was sorry for what she had to answer. "No, I don't. When we go, we go by roller, and I can't drive them." One of her students usually did that, and only when the lesson that time around dealt with things Myrithe knew better than she did, or things like colors that she couldn't see. If they had taken another means of transportation, she would have remembered the way, but being inside a roller, surrounded by all that metal, threw off both her sense of direction and her sense of distance.
"Damn. Do you know who else would know?" Lesana persisted.
"Any of the students," Tama told her. "And Ranell, but she probably knows the way better from her place. If this is really important, you might want to consult her too."
"Right, good idea," said Lesana. "Thank you so much." She looked down the hall, then turned back to Tama. "I really wish she would tell me something about the future," she said, and the truth of it was on her face as well as in her thoughts. "It might help me not be a wreck."
Tama wanted to tell her that the only thing that would help with that was knowing what she was going to do, but they both knew it. Instead, she said, "It might. Or it might not. What if she told you—" She checked the hall herself, forward and back, making sure no one was around. "What if she told you something bad? Like it would die, or have no arms, or be slow or—" She stopped before she could say "blind." "Things like that. Would you want to know?"
"Yes," said Lesana. "I'd know what to do then." Tama's reaction must have been stronger than she thought, because Lesana's expression changed to one of horror at what she had said. "Oh Mora, I didn't mean—"
"We're all different," said Tama. The truth stung sometimes, but it was better said. "In body and mind. You have your opinion and you're entitled to it. I can't tell you what to do." She suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a hug, and returned it to comfort both of them.
"I'm so sorry," said Lesana, sounding choked. "This is making me crazy. I should just stop talking to people I care about or they're all going to start avoiding me." She pulled back to arm's length and managed a small smile. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it." Tama squeezed her friend's shoulder. "Go find Myrithe."
"Right," said Lesana, and started down the hall. "I'll come by later," she called.
"Sure," Tama called back. She watched until Lesana turned the corner, then slumped against the wall. They were all different; she knew more of the truth of that than most. She had been told before that she was probably the only one who would have made the necessary decision in a hard situation. Now, thinking of what Lesana had said, she wondered how many more of those situations there were destined to be.
Myrithe had settled in a mostly-intact building near the edge of the ancient city ruins. There were no outward signs of habitation so far as Lesana could tell, but once she left the volunteer driver sitting on the grass with a book and went closer, the details came into view. The structure was the only one around with a roof, and that looked new. So did the door, and when Myrithe opened it, Lesana could see that most of the furnishings were as well. They would, for the most part, have to be; very little of what was left in the ruins could have survived everyday use after withstanding the elements since the Darkness.
"You have not come here before," Myrithe observed when they were both settled, pleasantries over, in light, airy-looking wooden chairs. Lesana didn't know where they had come from; the League and the Points had agreed to her plan of providing Myrithe with a stipend for living expenses, but she had never seen furniture like that for sale or salvage. Come to think of it, most of the rest of the furnishings were of the same style. Maybe she had made it?
"No, I haven't," Lesana agreed. "I've been studying what Ranell knows, with her, and we aren't through it, or I'd have been coming here to learn." That would be happening soon; Ranell's reaction to her personal learning curve seemed to indicate that she was a quicker study than her current teacher.
"Is that what brings you here now?" Lesana was never sure, when conversations with Myrithe took a direct line toward her aim, if the other woman had been looking at the future or was just very perceptive. She wasn't sure which she would rather believe.
"Actually, yes," said Lesana. "If you're willing, I think for now I only want to ask questions." Whether anything more happened would depend on the answers.
Myrithe seemed to understand. "I see. What did you want to learn?"
"Purification," Lesana answered. "I know how to do water. Can it be done for land?"
"Oh, yes, without question," said Myrithe. "It gets rid of different things, but it is very similar. Bianxeni temples were built on purified ground for as long as I lived before the Darkness. From what one of your associates tells me, they still go through the motions today. But it was mainly used on a smaller scale, to keep houses built on former animal pastures from smelling like it on days like this."
Lesana had to laugh. "So the temples, how big were they usually, back then?"
"Probably about as big as the building where you live and work. The two temples together, that is. The ground for both was done at once, as it is today."
"About how long did it take? With how many people?"
Myrithe didn't answer immediately. When she did, it was with a question of her own. "If I may ask, what are you planning to purify, and how large is it?"
"Um." Lesana wondered how much she should say. "Big."
"The grounds of your building?" Myrithe guessed. "Burned-out farmland?"
"Jarrinn," said Lesana.
Myrithe blinked, uncomprehending. Then recognition broke like a wave over her face. "Ah!" she said, smiling. "Chayrin."
"I guess so." It sounded close enough. Ulith would know for certain if that were its old name, but she was no historian.
"All of it?" asked Myrithe. At Lesana's nod, her brow wrinkled, and she asked, "Why does it need to be purified?" Her expression grew more grave as Lesana explained. At the end of the recitation, she was quiet for a few seconds before saying anything.
"Is it even possible?" Lesana asked.
"It may be," Myrithe said. "Because purification of the land is generally used to remove magical residues and death-energy, it is stronger in its basic form than water purification. Still, I am not certain that what you suggest can be done. Nor am I certain," she added, forestalling Lesana's protest, "that it cannot. Poisons such as you have described are unknown to me, and were unknown to my teachers and fellows. It may be that they are easy to sift out and destroy, or we may need to apply ourselves to finding a suitable solution."
"So we'll need to experiment," said Lesana.
"Of course." Myrithe stood, and Lesana followed her example. "Will you send word to Ranell? She will be needed."
Lesana nodded her agreement. "When shall I tell her to be here?"
"Come here tomorrow morning, the two of you," Myrithe answered. "There are things I must show you, and things we must try, and you look to have little time."
"I don't know how much time I have," said Lesana, as Myrithe opened the door. "But thank you."
Only as the door swung shut behind her did she realize that she would have to report all this to the Points as well.
"The food around here is better than I remember it," said Vance. They were through with the food in question, and had gone to Tama's rooms to talk this time. Oddly, Vance found himself missing the rooms he was barely settled into, though this was the next best place to be. He didn't really know any of the rest of the crew he'd come along with, and he and Tama had seemed unable to stop talking since that morning. It was strange, but he was enjoying it, and that surprised him almost as much as its happening in the first place.
"There was a different cook team last time you were here," Tama informed him. "Brunin is heading it right now, and he used to be an honest-to-Mora cook before the riots. You were treated to Lenae's handiwork last time, and she's pretty good, but the people under her aren't."
"Which explains why you had berries for breakfast that day," Vance guessed, and was immediately sorry. He had no business reminding her of the fateful demonstration; no one did. He tried to amend it with a change of topic. "So when do you take a turn cooking?"
"Mostly I don't," said Tama. "I'm too busy usually. Heads of departments only get called when we're short on people, and they don't often call me even then."
"Because you're heading two departments now?" he hazarded.
"That, and I'm not any good at it," Tama admitted. "It's kind of hard to cook when you can't tell if most of the food is raw, cooked, or overdone. I just can't master knowing when between the time it starts to smell good and the time you start smelling the smoke is the right time to pull it off the heat." She smiled, only a little affectedly. "I had a starak of a time explaining myself when I first got here. I think they let all the department heads off just so they wouldn't have to cover for my mistakes anymore!"
Vance laughed with her at that. There were so many sides to her Power that he'd never thought about. He didn't know if she saw fire, or how water looked, and he wanted to. Instead, he said, "Well, cooking is one thing I can do. It's much harder to cut yourself with a knife when you're not holding it."
"And you wouldn't get any steam burns," Tama realized. "Or have to use hot pads." He had the sudden feeling that she was as curious as he was.
"Right, but it's still a pain having to either sit on a higher chair or stand up to peek into all the pots," he said. "Kitchens are generally harder to resize for differences."
"True." Tama thought for a moment. "Did they make any changes, back before the riots, when they found out they messed up? To make it easier for you, I mean."
Vance shook his head. "The Board was the Board. Kinetics were kinetics. They didn't make accommodations because everyone had their Power, and for everyone else it was just a matter of course to do normal things with it. I didn't really fit anywhere."
"How—" Tama hesitated. "Can I ask, how did they make a mistake like that?"
"Wishful thinking," he answered. "I passed the entrance exam higher than I should have, and I got through basic training much too fast. They thought I was some sort of prodigy."
"Entrance exam?" Tama echoed.
"To make sure the people they found really were kinetics, and not just false leads," he explained. "They kept a watch on everyone with a certain genetic marker, and came after them when linked-in thought-readers started sensing that they had a Power. But kinetics are different, and apparently so are other sensory Powers. You can't tell if the person has one beyond the marker unless the sense is gone. So they'd send out messages to the ones they were watching, usually when you were about fifteen. It was the Board, so there was really no way to refuse. When you got there, what they did was put your arms to sleep, like you were getting dental work or stitches, strap you into a chair, and throw a ball at you."
"Pretty primitive," Tama remarked.
"Not when you consider that the chair was actually an enhancement machine," said Vance. "And someone else was hooked into it, making sure you really had kinetics so you wouldn't get bonked in the nose with the ball. What happened with me was that I didn't use my hand to catch it. Usually the only people who do that on the first try are high-power kinetics, the ones who can live almost normally with full severing."
"So that's one time when doing well is bad."
"And another is when you're learning, and they find out you can teleport," Vance continued. "They offered basic instruction to everybody who passed the exam, as a gesture of goodwill, and almost nobody refused. I ran through the training in a week, so I could get back home, and at the last, they showed me how to teleport."
"And you did it," Tama guessed.
"After about ten tries," he told her. "Which is apparently very fast. I only had one arm asleep at the time, and the trainer I was working with said I might be able to do even better with the other one out too, and I told him to go ahead. Except a few seconds later I went out instead. And when I woke up . . . " No matter how many times he told it, he still had trouble finishing.
"You were . . . how you are," Tama finished for him. It was a nicer way to say it than he'd heard in a while. "That's just wrong."
He knew it was. He had known that from the moment he awakened in custody, essentially unable to move except by his Power. He decided to spare her the tales of his acquaintance with the shock-hobbles and the boosters; Ranell had probably told her all about that as well. It was time for another topic change, before they both went uncomfortably silent. "So how did you learn to use your Power?"
"I was born with it," Tama answered. "Or rather, them."
"So it is all sensory Powers that work that way," said Vance. "I wondered if it was more than just kinetics." In his time with the Board, he had worked with a woman who had been born with horribly misshapen limbs, and learned that she had been able to use her kinetic Power from the start. He had never met anyone with any other sensory Power until meeting Tama. It made him wonder how much the Board hadn't known.
"Apparently so." Tama shifted in her chair. "I mainly had to learn how not to use them. How to separate reading people from seeing, how not to need to keep the sight on all the time."
"Why do it like that?" Vance asked. "It was meant to work in place of normal vision. And I know you're perfectly capable of using it as much as you want. Why not use it?"
Tama was shaking her head. "It's not a replacement, it's a substitute," she said. "That isn't the same thing. And sometimes it's a damn poor substitute. I used to get in trouble for tasting the produce when I was still working farm trades because judging by the smell and the feel of it wasn't always good enough. They bounced me around till I hardly knew which farm I was staying at. They got rid of me the second they thought I might be twelve and that still wasn't the end of it. I must have been let out of every trade there was. Box packing. They said to put three bottles of juice and three of milk in each box, but there weren't any labels and I can't see through glass. Machine operation. Eventually there'd be a screen, or colored wires or switches to mess with, and I was gone."
"Couldn't you tell them?" asked Vance. "Just that you were colorblind?"
"I did. They didn't grasp the full situation. Most of them kept trying to believe it was just a few colors I couldn't tell apart." She sighed. "Eventually one of the places assigned me to inventory and quality control, and that I could do, mostly. Then they found out I was good at helping people with problems."
"And the rest is evident."
"Yeah."
"I don't understand, though, still," he said. "Those are just limitations, not reasons to keep from using your sight."
Tama seemed to look through him. "All right then. You have medium strength in kinetics, right? Why don't you use it to look as if you're at least mobile from the waist up? It wouldn't take all your energy. Kinetics is made to do that."
"Because it would be a waste," Vance said automatically. "Why would I need to move myself around when I can affect things directly? It's just a lot of extra effort for . . . " His mind seemed to click then, and he stopped. "Oh."
"Exactly. Why go to extra effort when I can just remember where things are, or arrange them so I'll know? It just isn't necessary." She looked back down, running her fingertips over each other. "And, well . . . "
Vance wondered if what she was thinking was anything like what he thought often. "Well what?"
"Sometimes," she said at length, to her hands, "I'm afraid of what would happen if I couldn't use my Power. If I got hit on the head and it went away forever, or if it just goes away when you get old. Or now, if someone found out it would hurt the baby. I have to know what I'd do without it, that I could still function."
Vance didn't want to breathe, for fear it would disrupt the seeming mirror of his thoughts. How often had he wondered what would happen to him without his Power? For all he had cursed it back in the days of the Board, it was the only thing that made his life bearable—starak, made it liveable. He was glad to have survived, so that he could help keep anyone else from ending up like him; but as long as there was the uncertainty, he couldn't simply accept himself wholesale and be done with it. Being confined was one thing, being helpless another. He found himself speaking. "I wonder sometimes if it would be worth it, without the Power."
"Everything you depend on disappears," Tama put in, sounding hollow.
"And nobody understands."
"I do."
Her eyes were pointing elsewhere, but Vance could feel her gaze locked with his.
Copyright © 2001 by Katherine Foreman.