Mind Over Psyche

by Karina L. Fabian

  “Oh, thank God!” Deryl exclaimed. “You need a shave!”

  Joshua blinked. Then he laughed, short barks that grew into whooping gales until he hunched over, clutching his side.

  “Joshua?”

  “A shave?” Joshua managed to burst out. The psychologist part of him warned that he was bordering on hysteria, but he didn’t care. It felt so good to laugh! “Thank God I need a shave?”

  A smile quirked Deryl’s lips, but he spoke earnestly. “You don’t understand. When I woke up, here, I thought—I thought I’d really gone crazy—”

  “Yeah? Join the club!”

  “Well… they said your behavior has been kind of erratic…”

  Suddenly, Joshua realized they’d kept him under surveillance. Somehow, that made it funnier. He fell back against his sleeping pallet, rolling. Soon Deryl was laughing too.

  “’We come in peace’ didn’t work!” Joshua sputtered.

  “You’re so scruffy! I never would have hallucinated you with two day’s growth of beard!”

  “I’d have never hallucinated being a prisoner in a mandrake on steroids!”

  “A what on what?”

  Then neither could talk for their laughter.

  Finally, Joshua sat up, still chuckling, and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Whew! Deryl, I am so glad to see you. Now, let’s go home, man.”

  “We can’t.”

  The words bathed Joshua in ice water. The panic came back. “What do you mean, ‘We can’t’?”

  Deryl took a deep breath to calm the last of his giggles. “Joshua, I’m not even sure how we got here. Tasmae—Josh, she’s here! She’s real!—she said that no one can teleport right now. There are ‘storms.’ I don’t know, maybe you’d call them ‘anomalies in the space-time continuum’? I think the only reason we got here was because she was Calling me when I was trying to escape—”

  The urge to throttle his friend returned with a vengeance. “Deryl, I want to go home!”

  “Yes. Okay. I know. Josh, I’m so sorry. I never meant to drag you into this. I just—I freaked. Malachai drugged me. He was going to convince my aunt and uncle that I was beyond help and I don’t know what and…” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Tasmae. I’ll figure out what I did and how to get you home. I promise.”

  “Yeah, all right.” It was the best Deryl could do at the moment, and Joshua knew it. He leaned back against the wall—it gave slightly, as if thinly cushioned—and shut his eyes. He felt weary again, but a better weariness than the malaise of earlier. However, the headache that had been dogging him since yesterday made itself known in force. With one hand, he rubbed his temples. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”

  “Well, Tasmae’s convinced you’re harmless—”

  “’Mostly harmless.’” Joshua smirked, but fought back another bout of laughter.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” He hadn’t lent Deryl a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet. In the story, a researcher for the guide spent fifteen years studying Earth before changing its entry from “Harmless” to “Mostly Harmless.” “So?”

  “So we’re guests now. I’m going to take the room next to yours—”

  “This isn’t a cell?”

  Deryl rolled his eyes, and it again struck Joshua how he and Tasmae both had that expression. “I’ll have to be your interpreter until some of the others learn English. Tasmae, of course, already knows it from me.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. She never said a word.”

  Deryl shrugged. “This isn’t an actual town. It’s sort of a keep—a fallback if one of the nearby cities gets overrun by the Barins—that’s their enemy—”

  “We’re in a war zone?”

  “No. Calm down. The Barins—didn’t I tell you this at SK-Mental?—they’re from another planet, and for whatever reason, they only attack in waves with a long time—months, even years—in between. The Kanaan call it the Season of War. This is the Season of Preparation, so they’re here checking the defenses, doing military exercises, and making sure the keep is ready just in case. Anyway, the point is, there aren’t very many people here right now. They’re only using the outer areas.”

  “The part that’s a plant? We’re really inside a plant?”

  Deryl’s face split into a grin. “Cool, huh? No wonder I had such a tough time explaining mortar to them. Would you try to make a daisy chain with cement? Look, we’ve kind of put a wrinkle in their plans, so I think we need to just lay low and follow Tasmae’s lead. There are mostly warriors here, with some support staff, and some of them are having problems believing I’m the Ydrel. And nobody knows what to think of you. Hey, you don’t look so good.”

  The headache had him full in its grip. “Caffeine deprivation, probably. Dehydration. Hunger. Stress. What I wouldn’t give for a D.C.”

  “No Diet Cokes here, I’m afraid, but let’s see what we can do about the rest.”

  Joshua didn’t even bother to argue or nod, just stood—slowly, as the vise around his head tightened at the change in altitude—and followed him.

  The door, which resembled a violet petal but had proved sturdy enough when he’d been banging his fists against it, folded up and out of the way, and they passed through to the smooth light brown corridors that he vaguely remembered going through two days before. Deryl walked with complete confidence, and Joshua followed. After the third turn, however, his curiosity got the better of him. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And you’ve been awake and about for…?”

  “An hour or so.” The corridors forked, and Deryl took the left one.

  “So how do you know?”

  “Tasmae. I guess you could say she, uh, ‘flashed’ into my mind a map of the outpost.” Deryl looked at his friend thoughtfully. “Well, not a map, exactly. Everybody here communicates telepathically. I think you’ve figured that much out, right? So she didn’t tell me or even show me—she shared her understanding of the outpost.”

  “So you know everything she knows about it?”

  “Everything she wanted to share with me. Psychic communication is like verbal communication; when you communicate telepathically, you can usually share just what you want the other person to know. Does that make any sense?”

  “No. But maybe it will when my head stops pounding. In the meantime, we ought to come up with a name for telepathic talk. It’s awfully awkward saying ‘psychic communication’ or ‘communicating telepathically.’ And let’s not even get into Tasmae ‘flashing’ you.”

  Deryl snorted. “You can’t be too sick, if you can make puns. Not illness sick, anyway. Any ideas?”

  “Ask me after the local equivalent of ibuprofen kicks in.” Joshua groaned.

  “Hang on, we’re almost there.”

  They passed through another, sturdier door. At first, Joshua thought Deryl must have made a wrong turn and ended up in a dormitory. It held none of the usual things he associated with an infirmary—no equipment, no charts hanging on the beds, not even privacy curtains. Just two men in green tunics and slacks sitting beside one bed, leaning in concentration over the leg of a young woman dressed in the same thick, skin-tight red outfit that passed for uniforms here. Sweat beaded on her pale face, and when one healer shifted slightly, Joshua saw why. A huge gash cut through her calf so that a meaty flap of skin and muscle hung loosely. The sight of it, combined with his headache, brought bile to his throat, and he quickly sat down on the nearest bed with his head in his hands, trying not to gag. He felt the bed give slightly as Deryl sat beside him.

  Then he felt…something. He couldn’t define it, but it teased at him through the pain of his headache, and he tried to concentrate on it instead. It was almost sound, almost touch, and it suggested comfort, like a soft pillow and low peaceful music did whenev
er he was sick with the flu. But just like when his mother turned the music too low, he strained to make out what it was.

  Deryl nudged him, and he looked up, moving his head as little as possible. The young woman was standing, balanced by the men in green as she put weight on her leg. She hesitated a moment, then nodded, smiling. They released her and she stood on her own, turning to give each one a quick hug. As she strode out of the room, Joshua took a good hard look at her leg. Where her flesh had been cleaved in two, there was now only a slightly pink area on her lovely skin. His jaw dropped.

  Deryl snickered.

  “Oh? Can you do that?” Joshua snapped at his friend.

  “No, but he can.”

  Joshua turned just in time to see a pair of hands move toward his face, and the sensation he’d only vaguely felt earlier flooded his awareness. If what he had sensed before had been quiet music, this was like standing in front of the speakers at a major concert. He could feel the power of the healer, beating in time with his heart, his very cells joining in the harmony. His headache washed away in glory.

  A momentary prickling in the back of his skull, and as suddenly as it had engulfed him, the sensation of power vanished. He swayed in its absence.

  “Whoa.”

  Deryl and the healer steadied him. “Are you okay?” Deryl asked.

  “Yeah. Great. What a rush. Can we do it again?” He felt giddy and unfocused.

  The healer laughed. “You are very sensitive to healing power. You are a healer in your world, then?”

  “No way, not like that!” But then he stopped, considering. His mother’s friend, a local Reiki master, insisted Joshua had power and had invited him to train with her. He recalled, too, just how deeply he’d gotten inside Deryl’s head when circumstances had driven the psychic client into catatonia. “Well, maybe. I can’t say for sure.”

  The healer sat next to Joshua and handed him a drink. He didn’t look much older than Deryl or himself. “Well, I can. Drink this. It’s safe, and you need the nourishment. You must come back sometime. Perhaps we could teach each other.”

  “That’d be cool, but I—Hey! When did you learn to speak English?”

  “I picked it up from you. Es más fácil, eh?”

  “Sí—but that’s Spanish! You picked up both languages from me? Just how long were you in my head?”

  “Not long, and I promise, my intention was only to cure your headache. The language is incidental. I did not know your world had two languages. Que cómico. You’ll have to help me sort them out.” Suddenly, he looked up toward the healer who frowned at him from the other side of the room. “Con permiso, but I need to perform a cleansing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I expel any parts of your memories or personality that I may have picked up during the healing. It’s important especially when dealing with head injuries—or aliens.” He smiled. “But I will keep the language. It will be useful for us. Muchas gracias.”

  “No, thank you. I feel terrific.” As the healer walked away, Joshua stood and stretched. “What’s next?” He asked Deryl.

  “Let’s go.” His friend scowled and left without checking to see if Joshua followed.

  “Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Joshua asked as the door closed behind them and they were alone in the halls. It struck him as kind of eerie how empty the hallways were.

  “How can you sense the power in that room?” Deryl demanded.

  “You got me. Why, jealous?” Deryl didn’t answer, just upped his pace. Joshua grabbed him by the shoulder, making him stop and face him. “Listen, I’m not psychic. I can’t telep.”

  “Telep?”

  “Yeah. Speak telepathically? Telep? I made it up just now. The point is, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on, okay? This place is even more bizarro to me than it is to you, and you’re about the closest thing to normal I’ve got—and that’s not saying much.” He hoped Deryl would take that as the joke he’d intended and felt relieved when his friend gave him a sardonic grin. Deryl had come a long way since the beginning of the summer, when he couldn’t even say the word “crazy.” “You seemed pretty happy to be here until just a minute ago. So what happened?”

  “It’s nothing,” he hedged, but Joshua pinned him with his stare until he added, “It’s just… The healers didn’t do anything for me.”

  “Oh? What about your hand?”

  Deryl looked at his hand as if remembering it for the first time. Rather than a nasty, scabbed cut, a narrow, jagged scar cut across his palm.

  “Fine,” he acquiesced. “But what about the rest? I was out for almost a whole day thanks to Malachai’s ‘cocktail,’ and they never touched me. It’s like they were scared of me.”

  Joshua crossed his arms, considering. “The drugs?”

  “I asked Tasmae. They know how to expel poisons.”

  He shrugged. “Then maybe they were afraid. You are the Ydrel.”

  “So?”

  “So, up until a few weeks ago, our weeks, that is, the Ydrel was—as you put it—some kind of cross between an angel and a supercomputer, right? Now you suddenly appear on their world—acting very strangely, I might add. You kind of scared me back at SK-Mental even before you freaked out and took me hostage.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about that.” Deryl studied the floor.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Joshua’s stomach growled loudly. “Know where we can get some food?”

  Again, Deryl led them down a twist of halls that Joshua couldn’t keep track of.

  “Is there any method to this architectural madness?” He finally complained.

  “There are direct routes, if you know how to find them, and if the ‘mandrake’ as you call it, will let you in. I’m not sure I’m trusted, yet, so we’re taking the common public ways everywhere. Certain areas, like the healers’ den, are hard to get to on purpose, except when taking someone who’s seriously injured there—then a direct path opens up. Some places are hard to get out of. You can lead the enemy in, trap them, and collapse part of the building on them.”

  Joshua stopped to examine the walls suspiciously. “Really? That’s vicious.”

  Deryl shrugged. “It was Tasmae’s idea, not mine. I did tell you that the invaders tried to kill her in the last war? Well, that was how she destroyed the Traitor’s forces after they sneaked inside her city and killed her mentor and about half the people attending her installation ceremony. Let’s go. I’m hungry, too.” He hurried ahead.

  “Remind me not to get on Tasmae’s bad side,” Joshua muttered as he hastened to catch up. He shuddered against the feeling that the walls were going to come down on him out of sheer spite.

  Soon, the hallways became a little wider and straighter. Just before a turn, Deryl stopped Joshua with his arm and paused with his eyes closed.

  “Checking your shields?” Josh asked. Deryl nodded. One of the first things Joshua had helped him learn to do at SK-Mental was to develop multiple layers of shields against the psychic impressions that bombarded his senses. Joshua wondered if he had a tougher time protecting himself here, where everyone had psychic abilities, or on Earth, where no one did but where uncontrolled thoughts projected themselves to Deryl. He filed the question away to ask when they had privacy, like maybe when they got back home.

  They crossed the hall and went through a larger than usual door which opened into a cafeteria. Like all the rooms they’d seen so far, this one lacked familiar angles and flat surfaces. Everyone ate sitting on cushions at low tables. Otherwise, it looked like a typical cafeteria. About a dozen large round tables dotted the area, half of them full of diners, most of whom wore red uniforms. Servers flowed in and out through a door in the back, bringing plates of steaming dishes or platters of exotic fruit, which they set in the middle of the tables. Now that he’d had some reassurance that he could safely eat, Joshua’s stomach growled again.<
br />
  One of the servers noticed them and stopped in her tracks. Everyone turned toward them. Caught under the stare of forty-odd warriors, Joshua wondered if he shouldn’t have remained in his cell, after all.

  Chapter 6

  Deryl set his face in a neutral, almost haughty, expression, but he held himself as tightly as a guitar string about to snap. His pupils contracted and twitched in a way that worried Joshua. Their appearance had apparently caused some kind of psychic ruckus, and Deryl was caught in the midst of it.

  “You okay?” Joshua didn’t want to think what would have happened had Deryl not checked his shields beforehand. He’d seen the young psychic react with everything from hysteria to self-induced coma, and he could not afford to lose his only friend, ally, and, for that matter, interpreter. “We could come back later.”

  Then, from further down the room, Tasmae stood and made her way to them. As she did, others rose in their places. Today, she wore a sleeveless black tunic that tied kimono-like on the sides over loose black pants. Her slippered feet made a swishing noise as she moved smoothly toward them. Deryl turned his focus on her, and his expression gentled. She stopped in front of him, and, including Joshua with a glance from her obsidian-black eyes, brought her fist first to her heart, then to her forehead. Around the room, others repeated the gesture.

  Deryl returned the salute, Joshua a half step behind. With a nod and a smile to them, Tasmae led them to her table.

  “Want to tell me what that was all about?” Joshua muttered to Deryl through the side of his mouth. People still stared at them, most without the veiled hostility of before, but with enough with suspicion to make him nervous.

  Deryl he kept his aloof smile firmly in place. “Tell you later. Don’t worry. Tasmae’s got it under control.”

  Tasmae, who once dropped a building on her enemies’ heads. Great.

  Nonetheless, once they sat down at her table, Joshua’s extreme hunger overcame his milder suspicions, and he concentrated on filling his plate and his stomach. The table held fruits and vegetables cooked in several ways, plus breads, but no meat. They hadn’t given him any meat earlier, either, but he’d thought that was because he was a prisoner. What I wouldn’t do for a steak. Are the Kanaans vegetarians or herbivores?